


Reality In Motion

by Glaciere



Category: Block B, K-pop, Winner (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Never Met, Canon Compliant, F/F, Genderswap, Show Me The Money Era, girl!Jiho, girl!Minho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-14 00:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14758872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glaciere/pseuds/Glaciere
Summary: Most of the contract in front of her is written in fine print. Can’t recommend the second producer on her team. Can’t use the songs she writes for the show elsewhere without paying MNET half the profits. Can’t badmouth the show. Can’t reveal the winner before the final episode airs — that one makes Jiho bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smirking. As if everyone signing these contracts won't find that out even before the cameras roll.





	Reality In Motion

**Author's Note:**

> A slightly belated birthday present for therearenights. You have to buy me a puppy now.

The harbinger of doom is wearing a slightly rumpled suit and slippers when Jiho comes in.

“It’s a good opportunity,” Kyuwook says, tapping the edge of the plaque that lets the rare visitors know he’s a CEO and not some poor down-on-his-luck soul who had accidentally wandered into the KQ entertainment building. Jiho makes an effort to not roll her eyes. It’s not an offer—the offer had been made, and negotiated, and accepted all before this meeting. They both know Jiho doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room, although she can technically still refuse.

She can technically do a great many things.

“Why do they even want me?” she asks instead. 

“They liked you on that girl rap show. You’re unconventional.”

“Right.” Jiho examines her nails in lieu of letting him know what she thinks about MNET, Show Me The Money, and their promotional ideas. ‘Unconventional’ means she’s great at her fucking job, and to add insult to injury, she’s great at it with both a vagina and the face her momma gave her. It’s not a pretty face — lips too full, nose too big, eyes too small, untouched by a surgeon. An acquired taste, her ex-girlfriend had said once. Jiho is hell-bent on other people acquiring it; doesn’t mean she likes it being used without her permission.

“You buy in?” she asks. Most of the contract in front of her is written in fine print. Can’t recommend the second producer on her team. Can’t use the songs she writes for the show elsewhere without paying MNET half the profits. Can’t badmouth the show. Can’t reveal the winner before the final episode airs — that one makes Jiho bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smirking. As if everyone signing these contracts won't find that out even before the cameras roll. 

Kyuwook hesitates, then shrugs. “No. The only other rapper we have is Jihoon, and Bastarz are doing well as it is. I hear YG bought in.”

Jiho scrunches up her nose. “Again?”

“Might be they aren’t sure their guy can go through on his own. This is the biggest season yet.”

Well. She can use them back. 

“I want equal screen time.” 

Kyuwook pinches the bridge of his nose. He does that a lot, talking to Jiho. She considers it something of a personal achievement. Kyuwook is good people, but sometimes even he needs to be reminded she doesn’t play by the rules she doesn’t like. 

“You know it doesn’t work like this,” he says. 

“It fucking should, Prez.” Jiho takes a deep breath, amends. “Fine. Equal time to my partner. Whoever the fuck it is.” They might pair her up with a no-name as a result, but even that would be a good deal, all things considered.

It’s Paloalto, apparently. She finds that out a week later from Jay Park of all people. It’s EDM night at Cakeshop, and she’s bopping her head to the music, her first cocktail of the night half-gone, when he slides in the seat opposite her with a beer in hand.

“Enjoying the night?”

“Not anymore,” she grins. “What’s up?”

“Heard you got on the Money train.”

She answers in the same tone. “Heard you got the YG buy-in.”

Jay makes a face and shrugs. “Yeah, well. Drew the short straw. There's still hope he’ll be decent.”

Jiho snorts. “Right. Like the last year’s.” They share a look. For all his faults, Jay dislikes the industry’s games almost as much as she does, if for different reasons. Still; it’s nice to commiserate sometimes. “Who you get saddled with on the couch, anyway?”

“Loco,” he says. “They said I could bring whoever if I agreed.”

Jiho raises her drink to him and downs the rest in one.

When Jiho was younger, her mother got tired of her and her brother’s constant fighting and sent her to live with her father in Japan. Jiho spent most of the first year doodling on the margins of her notebook in class, learning Japanese and making tentative melodies on an old badly tuned piano in the music room. 

The second and third years in Japan Jiho spent learning she couldn’t drink for shit. 

Her morning hangover is massive. She stabs herself in the eye with the eyeliner and spends the next few minutes swearing at the mirror and the fact that Jay wouldn’t have to bother with having to put on makeup in the ungodly hour of the morning by virtue of having a dick. She’s almost tempted not to bother, only they are preparing for Block B’s tour and there might be cameras in the studio.

It’s an ugly thing, the tour. They are still debating her two features on the set list. The Korean fans like her, expect her — she’s Block B’s main writer, producer and collaborator, the unofficial seventh member of the group. The Japanese debut is new. Important. Co-ed groups just don’t fly. Her brother is a testament to that.

“Bigbang does,” Jihoon points out for the umpteenth time, bless his naïve heart. Jiho rolls her eyes at him in reply even though it makes her head pound more.

“We can’t all be G-Dragon,” she says in a practiced voice. Kyung snorts next to her but refrains from adding anything because he knows what’s good for him. 

An hour into the meeting her phone buzzes with a message from Jay. It reads: _‘You got Paloalto’_. God have mercy, thinks Jiho and doesn’t reply.

She hates airports on her better days, let alone running on three cups of double espresso at seven in the morning, and the fans do not improve the experience at all. Block B’s fans are more polite than most, but Jiho still barely resists the urge to ask Kyung if he has a spare mask when the screaming starts, carefully avoids walking too close to him. A few girls point their cameras at her and shout “Zico!” in her face to get her attention. She waves at them before burrowing further into her oversized hoodie. Jiho’s own fans seem to have sent a representative instead of coming en masse — a girl she recognizes from one of the largest fan-cafes is talking quietly to Jiho’s manager. Out of the corner of her eye Jiho notices the rep bowing as she hands him a small bag. 

Thankfully passport control gods are merciful and Jiho gets a woman who glances at her once and doesn’t ask her to remove the sunglasses. God, but she must look like shit. Jiho doesn’t know if she’s slept at all in the last few days. The filming for Show Me The Money starts in three days and she hasn’t even glanced at the instructions she got from the PD. 

Kyung falls into step beside her when they get through to the other side, hustled to the gate by perpetually harried airport employees. There’s little chance of them being photographed at this stage, so Jiho doesn’t mind. 

“So a friend of a friend says he knows a girl who knows a girl,” he says. His whole body is turned to hers and his voice is pitched so low if a fan caught them on camera right now Jiho would have another fun month of a dating scandal on her hands. As it stands, she looks around but can’t feel the telltale pinpricks of other people’s gazes on her neck. The rest of the group is several paces ahead, now that they don’t have to worry about being separated and groped by preteens.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Jiho says. 

Kyung bumps her shoulder. “Come on, how long has it been since you got laid?”

“I don’t need to get laid, Park,” she says. “I need to work. I need to make sure you lot have something good in the wings if things in Japan go well, and I need to start on at least one beat for MNET’s latest disaster, and I need to do my laundry.” She considers. “Perhaps sleep. In that order of importance.”

“If you die, I’ll have to write all our songs, and we both know I’m shit at bad poetry,” Kyung says mildly.

Jiho huffs and picks up her pace.

She takes a look at herself on the plane’s tiny business class bathroom. Her hair is too bleached to look good without a stylist’s magic touch, and she forgot to brush it this morning so she looks like a gangly, blonde version of Sadako. Jiho ties it back into a short ponytail, not bothering with making it look presentable, splashes her face with stale water and goes back to her seat. She doesn’t have a neighbor because God forbid one of Block B’s members falls asleep on her knee and sparks a sexual harassment suit. Break one dick, get branded forever. Jiho smirks to herself.

The flight is long enough that Jiho has time to check whatever the MNET PD had sent. It turns out to be the filming schedule, the studio’s address, driving instructions to the venue where they will be filming the audition process, and a short list of names. Her lips curl when she scrolls past Stardom’s logo. Two buy-ins, both at least through the first round. Pathetic. P-Type is on the list, which surprises her — both his appearance on the show and the fact he felt the need to invest to continue past the first round.

The YG buy-in’s name is Song Minho. It’s unfamiliar. She mouths it a few times to get it to stick. Those on the list will be instructed on which judge to approach to get their pass, but in case they lack not only talent but also brain cells, the PD has tacked a note at the end letting the judges know they need to memorize the list as well. Everyone but Jiho had already signed their agreement.

That reminds her. She types up a quick _‘Do NOT think u can get a pass off me, mfs!’_ and sends the message to both Hanhae and her brother. Jiseok ignores her — of course he does. Hanhae replies: _‘was gonna go 2 JP??’ _Jiho spends a minute trying to decide if she needs to bribe Jay with a possible feature to let Hanhae through the first round or if he is good enough on his own. She twists in her seat and swats Kyung on the rim of his snapback.__

____

“Hanhae’s auditioning with Jay Park.”

____

“Yeah?” he sounds drowsy, but she knows for a fact Kyung is a dirty faker who can’t sleep on planes, no matter how hard he tries. Taeil next to him is really sleeping. She can tell by the drool.

____

“Yeah. You think I need to ask Jay to pass him? He deserves to pass.”

____

“Why don’t you pass him yourself?”

____

“I say one word to him when the cameras are on and I’m fucking him, Park, I know you’re not an idiot.”

____

“Who are you fucking?” asks Yukwon from the next row over. Jihoon groans. 

____

“Not you,” says Jiho, but lowers her voice. “Come on, Kyung. Help a girl out.”

____

“You really need to be fucking someone.” Kyung cracks an eye open. “He’s good on his own and you worry too much. Get some sleep. You look like death warmed over.”

____

Truth be told, Jiho is knackered. She curls into herself, trying to find a comfortable pose, but falls asleep before that happens.

____

The Singapore festival is someone else’s headache for once, for which Jiho is grateful. She’s only there for one song at the very end of the show but there’s still that niggling feeling that she needs to go poke at the set, or have a chat with lighting engineers. Or, as it turns out, with the sound tech. She’s not even sure she’s hearing the correct mix during the rehearsal, the drums are overwhelming to the point she can swear they are playing straight on her brain. 

____

The sound tech is a tiny, sweaty guy the organizers must have summoned directly from hell. 

____

“Hey,” she says, trying to edge around him to see the mixer. “Can we go easier on the high-mids? The cymbals are drilling a hole in me, man.” The faders are just haphazardly shoved every which way. Jiho tries not to grimace, smiles instead. Every sound engineer has their own style, she shouldn’t judge just because his happens to be a shitty, full of amateur mistakes one. “And on that note, maybe drop the highs on the vocals? Thanks.”

____

The sound tech gives her a look that slides off her shoulders to her thighs. Jiho stiffens.

____

“The mix is fine,” he says. “You’re not gonna be singing live anyway, pretty face.” 

____

Jiho takes a few moments to imagine herself taking off one of the stilettos she has to rehearse in and jamming the heel through his eye socket straight into his brain. Then she allows herself to exhale. The sound tech must have taken her pause for agreement because he’s already turned his back to her. 

____

“Listen, man,” she starts, only to be cut off.

____

“No, you listen. It’s 35 degrees, I’ve been here all day, and I’m not paid enough to entertain some chick who thinks she can mix better than pros just because she’s learned some tech lingo. The mix is fine. Go worry about your makeup.” He gives Jiho another dirty look and she gives him the finger in response. 

____

“You’re not even that pretty,” he spits as she’s walking away.

____

Gee. Never heard that one before. 

____

Kyung is nowhere to be found. Jiho flops next to Minhyuk on the front row. The women who were supposed to rehearse before them are hauling at least four large drums around the stage. Probably why the sound tech overdid the drums, to compensate for the sheer size of those things. Or maybe she’s giving him too much credit.

____

“Fair warning, I’m going to sound like I’ve been kicked in the nuts,” Jiho says conversationally. “My fucking vocals are higher than my heels in this mix.”

____

“You don’t even have nuts,” Minhyuk says in his most reasonable voice. She needs herself some Park Kyung, stat.

____

Park Kyung is hiding from the heat in Jiho’s dressing room. She was originally supposed to use the same dressing room as Block B, because no one googled the performers before inviting them and ‘Zico’ apparently sounded masculine to the organizers. They have since moved her to what must have been someone’s spare closet, judging by its size.

____

“God should smite all incompetent shitbags, all in favor say aye?” She shoves Kyung’s feet off the arm of the couch so she’d have some place to sit. It’s not the smallest dressing room she’s used, but it’s up there in the Tiniest Ten. 

____

“None opposed,” Kyung says without taking his eyes off his phone.

____

Jiho taps on her own phone to wake it up and scrolls through six work-related emails and a few Twitter notifications. She should probably post something, let the fans know they’ll see her in a few short hours. She hasn’t even been anywhere but the stage. The pamphlet on the table says they’re offering hand massages somewhere at the venue -that sounds nice. 

____

She ends up watching Drum Cat perform from the wings before the actual performance. They don’t sound terrible, sound tech from hell or not; looking at beautiful women pound things as hard as they can is better than the massage she didn’t get. Jiho licks her lips before remembering herself. Wouldn’t do to smudge the dark lipstick the stylist had spent ten minutes applying. Jiho likes sneakers and hoodies as much as the next person, but there’s something in being all dolled up for the stage that makes her feel untouchable, powerful when she performs. Maybe it’s the knowledge that not only is she better than anyone else when she’s out there, she also looks mighty fine while making haters cry. Jiho’s hair is styled in soft waves, although the overall effect is spoiled by the dark roots that are starting to show. She’ll need to take care of that when they get home tomorrow. One more thing to add to the ever-growing to-do list.

____

The sound tech hasn’t done anything with the mix. Jiho can probably kill a man with how sharp her vocals must sound to the audience. She tries to read the second bar lower and takes out the in-ear to hear anything other than the drums, but it doesn’t help much. Damn, does she hope the guy never finds another job. Come to think of it — Jiho bites out the last syllable in the song and takes a step forward to take a bow, — come to think of it she should really find out his name and let her manager know to not book him. Ever. In any capacity. 

____

Contrary to Jiho’s usual luck they still have enough time to go out late in the evening. There’s no afterparty to speak of for this event — some other performers are getting together for beer and soju, but nothing she can’t skip if she so desires. Currently, she desires very much to take a nice bath and work on a bass line that’s been stuck in her head for half a day. One out of two is all Jiho’s going to get, because bringing even the 25-key keyboard controller had seemed excessive for a two-day trip, but at least there’s a bath tub in the very nice suite the organizers ended up booking for her. Courtesy, once again, of the initial misunderstanding which saw her placed in a twin room with her own manager. The look on Jaehwan’s face was worth the hassle, and the only downside is being seven floors higher than the rest of the band. Jiho can’t bring herself to count that as one, what with the bath tub and the view.

____

Yukwon catches her in the hotel’s lobby. “We’re going out, apparently someone recommended Kyung this sick bar or something, I have no idea. You coming with?”

____

Jiho considers, then shakes her head. “Pass. Is everyone in the car already?”

____

“Yeah. We’re taking the van, I was just coming to get my phone. Why?”

____

“I need to take a selfie,” Jiho says, not paying any attention to Yukwon’s groan. 

____

“Oh, come on!”

____

She really does, if only to make up for the one she didn’t post in the morning. Jiho sits in the front of the van and angles her phone so that most of Block B’s faces are at least somewhat visible in the low light. It takes her several tries to get a good shot, which she posts on Instagram with something about a fun night ahead as the caption. At least no one expects a geotag from a celebrity, another country or not.

____

The first thing Jiho does back in Seoul is power up the DAW. Well. The second thing, after she shrugs out of her bra and puts on a ratty t-shirt, drinks a double espresso that should keep her up for a few hours. It’s not that late, but she has to be up at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow to tape Show Me The Money, and the caffeine will get her brain to work until she has to force herself to sleep. Jiho clicks through a few saved projects, looking for something to catch her eye. There’s an unfinished beat she is writing for Bastarz that really doesn’t fit with anything else they have so far, but she likes the saxophone in the hook.

____

Jiho carefully doesn’t click on the SMTM folder even though so far it consists of four samples from the sound bank and a half of one she wrote herself. She hesitates; moves an old lyric file to the folder just to feel productive. 

____

Maybe she’ll get someone worth spending the effort.

____

And maybe one of these days Hyoseob will turn into an actual human being who returns phone calls and lets her know when he’s free to finish the fucking song they have to release in a month. Jiho is not holding her breath for either of those things. She sends Hyoseob a message just to prove a point, lays her cheek on the table, looking at the screen in her hand. He hasn’t even read it, the bastard, and it’s been almost six minutes. Jiho lets out a puff of air to move a stray strand of hair on her face and succeeds only in making more fall right in her eyes. She groans and turns her face so that her whole forehead is on the table, breathing for a few moments to clear her head. She gets like this sometimes, restless on too little sleep and too much coffee, wastes hours doing nothing but writing simple melodies on her 49-key controller and deleting all of them in the morning. It’s worse when she has a deadline coming up for something, because Jiho doesn’t hate a lot of things but she absolutely hates being unproductive in the studio when she doesn’t have the freedom to be. 

____

“Fine!” Jiho slams both of her palms on the table and pushes off, her chair rolling back a few feet. “You know what? I’m going to sleep,” she announces to the empty room. Her phone blinks at her from the table and she blinks back at it, surprised. “Wait, really?”

____

Hyoseob has evidently decided to cooperate for once, for all that his message is a vague reprimand for not getting in touch earlier, to which Jiho tries very hard not to reply that she has, in fact, called him four times in the last three weeks. She opens her calendar instead to find the time that works for both of them. They won’t need more than a day in the studio, but that day has to be penciled in between Block B’s five hundred events in Japan she has to attend, her own appearances and filming for Show Me The Money. And that’s only on her side; it’s not like Hyoseob is all that free either.

____

When they finally finish ironing out the details, it’s three in the morning and her eyelids feel like someone’s poured hot sand in them. Jiho stretches and hears her joints pop in at least three places. Well, tomorrow’s looking up already, she thinks dryly. Today. Whatever.

____

The drowsiness doesn’t go away less than five short hours of sleep later, but it’s better than nothing. Jiho shuffles to the kitchen on autopilot, picks up a clean mug from the counter and then hesitates over the coffee machine. She really shouldn’t be drinking any more coffee this month. Her doctor says it’s bad for her heart; Jiho would rather not have a second operation on what she considers a fairly important organ, so she tries to monitor the amount she drinks. As Rolling Stones once said, if you try hard enough, you might even get what you need. Jiho yawns into her empty mug and resolutely sets it back on the counter. Determination is the one thing she doesn’t lack. 

____

She is taken aback by the sheer size of the crowd when Jaehwan pulls up in front of the stadium. 

____

“Jesus Christ on a Pogo stick,” Jiho murmurs. “How many people are there?”

____

“I read something like seven thousand are auditioning,” Jaehwan says, holding out a snapback for her. She has to go through the back door, the one marked with a giant arrow and a sign announcing it as an employee only entrance, but even that one is currently being besieged by hordes of rapper wannabes. Jiho makes out a few dozen people who obviously come from the industry and snorts. They stay as far back from the general crowd as they can, sometimes followed by small groups of fans, marked by fashionable clothes and conventionally attractive faces.

____

“I thought that was promotional bullshit,” Jiho remembers to say after a pause, still feeling dazed. Jaehwan shrugs. 

____

“Probably is. Still, I’m betting on a few thousand, judging by the crowd. The show’s been doing well,” he adds pointedly.

____

Which is why Jiho is here in the first place. Right. She has a single to promote — or will by the end of the broadcast. Jiho squares her bony shoulders and takes the snapback still dangling from Jaehwan’s fingers. No one stops her on the way to hair and makeup, the sea of people in front of the employee entrance parting when she comes close enough. Jiho can feel their gazes on her back well after the door has closed behind her. 

____

Jay is chilling in a black chair flirting with one of the stylists. Jiho rolls her eyes at the display.

____

“No amount of makeup can make your mug attractive,” she says instead of a greeting. “Shoo. Let them work their magic on someone who can still be helped.”

____

Jay quirks a brow at her. “You are as beautiful as driven snow.”

____

“You meant pure.”

____

“Never.” Jay grins at her and she grins back, probably making a face too savage for half past eight in the morning.

____

“We don’t have time to do anything with your roots,” the stylist says when Jiho is seated. Jiho senses faint disapproval in her words, but hair really hasn’t been a priority these past couple of days. 

____

“Sorry. I’ll just wear a snapback, you do what you can.”

____

“Oh. Okay.” The stylist turns Jiho’s head a few times and frowns. “We’ll just do your eyes then and go really natural on everything else. How’s that sound? Some blush, too…”

____

By the time the stylist is finished with her, most of the other judges have come and gone. One of the show’s producers, a small, wiry woman with a messy dark bob, sticks her head in the door.

____

“Finished?”

____

“I need five minutes,” Jiho’s stylist says. The producer — is she a Kim? Kim something or other? — frowns and shakes her head.

____

“We don’t have five minutes, filming has started.”

____

The stylist steps back with a huff. “I’m done, then. You can go,” she says to Jiho.

____

“Thanks,” Jiho replies a little awkwardly. 

____

Kim PD motions for Jiho to follow. She talks fast and confident, gesturing as they go through the winding corridors of the stadium’s backstage area. “We’ll be filming the introduction first, and then the teams’ entrance, three takes total unless something goes south. Rooms four and seven to your right here are for the individual contestants’ interviews. Anyway, just don’t go in there. Room five is for Paloalto and you, but Tablo and Jinusean will be using it too. We don’t segregate by gender here,” Kim gives Jiho a look to go with the words, but Jiho just nods. Makes sense. “Room six is for team interviews and then we’ll want to get your individual statements too, but that might not happen today. Too many people auditioning. Do you have anyone on the list?” 

____

“Don’t think so,” Jiho says. 

____

“We film those separately,” Kim explains. “Anyway, I think you’re all set. If you have any questions, ping me in the chatroom, my phone is like my lifeline,” she flashes Jiho a quick smile. “Never without it.”

____

Jiho smiles back. “I know the feeling. Thanks. You’ve been a big help.”

____

“Us girls have got to stick by each other, right?” Kim changes back to the consummate professional a moment later and nods at the doors. “Let’s go, we’re seven minutes late as it is.”

____

Seven minutes turn into thirty while the production crew run around like headless chicken, yelling directions for the cameramen, lighting guys and the few hundred people chosen for the audience. Jiho nods at Jay and Hyukwoo and bobs her head in a semblance of a bow to the rest of the judges, which most of them return. Tablo is sporting sunglasses so dark she wonders if he’s hungover. 

____

“I got gossip like you won’t believe,” Jay says in a low voice, but whatever he was going to add is swallowed by Han Dongchul appearing together with the MC and the production crew standing at immediate attention like trained soldiers. It’s almost creepy. They test the music and the mics, and then finally, finally start. 

____

All the judges have to stay behind the automatic doors while the MC announces the show and the teams, and then they go through another, less shouty take just for their appearance. When the doors open on their turn, Jiho is faced with a sea of people, the narrow path in the middle of the crowd reminding her uncomfortably of airports. At least nobody tries to feel her up when they go through.

____

Small mercies thus counted, they repeat the take twice: the first time because of a smoke machine that didn’t go off in time, and then again because the mic was hanging too low and got caught on camera.

____

When they finish filming, Han Dongchul claps his hands to get their attention. “The contestants will now please go outside to continue filming and allow us to clean up here. Everyone else, please be ready in four hours.”

____

Jiho loses sight of Jay and his amazing gossip in the crowd and reads through the show’s chatroom messages instead. Kim has posted the filming schedule for the day; turns out the four hours Han had given them are for filming the team statements. The Jinusean-Tablo team is up first, so they aren’t in the dressing room when Jiho gets there. 

____

“I hope you don’t start calling me ‘older brother’,” Paloalto says conversationally. It doesn't seem like he had been cleared by a stylist before the filming started. And he’s wearing a snapback that makes him look older than he is. Jiho hopes hers doesn’t have this unfortunate side-effect. 

____

There are a few ways she could reply to that. “Could call you ‘old man’,” she chooses in the end, says it with carefully measured flippancy. It’s borderline disrespectful, but if she wants to be treated as an equal, she needs to start somewhere. Her gamble pays off; Paloalto barks out a startled laugh. 

____

“Nice. Let’s go with Sanghyun. What’s yours? I assume it’s not actually Zico?”

____

“Woo Jiho,” she says, and bows properly this time.

____

“Nice to meet you, Woo Jiho. You know, last I heard they were going to cast Jessi.”

____

Jiho shrugs, answers the unspoken question. “I was told my appearance on Unpretty Rapstar had good ratings.”

____

Sanghyun nods. “That would explain it. ‘Young blood hotshot producer’ and all that.” He quotes the MC’s line from the introduction. “Jaebum says you’re good, at least. I suppose we’ll see soon enough.”

____

Jiho raises her eyebrows. “Oh, I’m very good.” 

____

Jay comes in together with Tablo, who immediately peels off to his corner of the dressing room and starts fiddling with his phone. He’s taken his shades off and looks not so much hungover as someone who hasn’t slept in a long while. 

____

“They’re filming P-Type’s interview now,” Jay announces to the room. “Man, I saw kids lining up for his autograph outside. Actual kids. Makes me feel old.”

____

“At least they know who he is,” Sanghyun says. “More than I expected, to be honest.”

____

“I still can’t believe he had to buy in.” Jiho stretches and takes a sit next to Tablo, who doesn’t pay them any mind. Jay brightens up and begins to say something only to be interrupted yet again, this time by Sanghyun’s laughter. 

____

“Buy in? As if. MNET paid _him_ to appear.”

____

“Yeah,” Jay nods. “Like I said: gossip. They could only get him for a couple rounds.”

____

Jiho whistles. 

____

“You should probably go,” says Tablo to no one in particular. “Seunghwan and Jinwoo were finishing up when I left, they asked us to get you guys.”

____

The show’s producers are distinctly unhappy at having been kept waiting, for which Jiho apologizes and Sanghyun waves them off with a mumble. The filming of the show is routine, if more formalized than Jiho’s used to: the only instructions they get is to talk in present tense. They are fed a few lines here and there, mostly skits to emphasize the rivalry between the teams, but surprisingly, most of the interview is relaxed. Jiho gets a couple jokes in, hopes they’ll make it into the broadcast. 

____

They are asked to wait after filming is over until the director finishes checking the screen and tells them, “Yes, okay, it’s cut”, and Sanghyun mutters, “Free at last, free at last.”

____

Jiho checks her phone. It’s nearly three in the afternoon, and she hasn’t even seen a contestant. The whole thing is beginning to feel like an elaborate prank. Another hour and she’ll start doubting there were ever any contestants at all.

____

“Be nice if MNET let us listen to them sometime this year,” she laments. Sanghyun snorts.

____

“You don’t need to listen to them. You can tell a good rapper by his attitude,” he glances at her, amends, “or her attitude. The point is, the whole package is important. The tone of voice. The way they start. The way they move around before they start. You can tell in ten seconds, max.”

____

“What if they’ve got good verses but are, like, shy?”

____

“Aren’t cut out for this industry.” Sanghyun shrugs, one-shouldered. For a moment Jiho can see the extra decade he has on her in the sag of his shoulders before he straightens up again. “Even those of us who are angels are just really well fucking governed sharks.”

____

They make the rest of the way into the stadium proper in silence, Jiho going through the main points in her head. Attitude or no attitude, her one major peeve is going to be lyrics. She’s not going to pass anyone who forgets their verses. Nerves Jiho understands, she has been nervous many times in performances far more important than this, but that’s never caused her to forget things she wrote herself. Jiho doesn’t see why she should treat anyone else different.

____

That proves difficult in the first half-hour or so, because every goddamn person she listens to ends up forgetting their lyrics. She has to bite on the inside of both her cheeks to stay quiet and not cringe. Jiho is also rapidly revising her opinion on Tablo’s proclivity for the darkest sunglasses possible; behind them he’s probably rolling his eyes at every contestant. She should invest.

____

There are a lot less people inside than she feared. The producers are only allowing a few hundred people in at the same time, and some of them are waiting for their turn on the stands along with managers and the stadium staff. The filming itself is slow-going, the sound people having to affix a microphone to every contestant before pointing a camera at them and then take it off, rinse and repeat for every next person. Her, Sanghyun, Jay and Hyukwoo are all in different corners of the field and she has no idea where the other two teams are. 

____

“Name?” she says without lifting her eyes from her notepad, as she’s taken to doing when she comes up to the next contestant in line, ready to tick it off. She doesn’t get a chance to, because the notepad is ripped from her hands and in the next moment some guy’s face is too close to hers, and she feels his hands on the collar of her hoodie. Stupefied, she watches the notepad bounce on the floor a couple times, only then registering that the guy is saying something. He’s not bad. Pretty good, even, except he’s also crazy and still grabbing fistfuls of her hoodie. His verse is a cocky diss at her and her idol upbringing, which she wouldn’t have minded until he forgets the lyrics. He spins around a few times, his rap turning nonsensical fast, and then, just as he seems to find his footing again, he cuts himself off, dropping his pants in front of her and the couple dozen people enjoying the spectacle. 

____

Jiho can’t even bend down to get her notepad from the floor because this would make his dick in line with her face. They are locked in a stalemate for a few seconds, him growing more unsure of himself and her more incredulous, until she repeats, “Name?” 

____

He pulls his pants up, holds them with one hand. “Black Nut. Um, Kim Daewoong?”

____

Jiho ticks it off. “Thanks.”

____

Jesus Christ on a Pogo stick.

____

She takes a break a couple hours later while waiting for the fresh wave of people to be brought in. It’s almost seven in the evening and she’s been awake for twelve hours, most of which she spent here. She needs that coffee, doctor’s recommendations be damned. Jiho promises herself to do better once she gets to Japan. Carrot juice and all. Squats, even. She nods to Hyukwoo when he wanders close.

____

“Anyone interesting so far?” Hyukwoo smiles at her. They run in the same circles but she had never interacted with him beyond the odd greeting here and there. He’s one of those people who asks others to talk to him like a friend no matter their age or standing, which makes it easy to relax around him.

____

Jiho shakes her head. “Starting to think I’ll keep all of my bling.” She jungles the necklaces she has on her.

____

“It’s only been what, a thousand people? Give it time. I’m sure you’ll find someone cool.”

____

Jiho shrugs. “I’ll settle for someone with good memory at this point. What about you?”

____

“I have slightly higher standards,” he quips, smiles again. “Got a few promising guys. No gals, sorry.”

____

“Not a lot of us.”

____

“Well,” he starts. “There’s…” and Jiho knows, she knows what he’s going to say and absolutely doesn’t want to hear it. 

____

“We can’t _all_ be fucking G-Dragon,” she says as firmly as she possibly can, and only registers her phrasing when Hyukwoo chortles into his water bottle. Jiho groans.

____

“Pity, that,” Hyukwoo remarks after a moment, still chuckling. “I like ‘em more on the curvy side, though.”

____

“Who doesn’t,” she murmurs, low enough that he doesn’t catch it.

____

“On that note, there’s a cutie on the list. Just came through with the last batch,” he continues. “Jay’s gonna get to her in a few. There, see? Near the stairs to the left. She’s like, my height?”

____

Jiho looks over but doesn’t see much of anything except more people in dark comfortable clothes. Anyone on the list is interesting since she will be seeing them on the regular basis, maybe even work together. So far she’s seen two of the people on the list get a pass — P-Type got his from Tablo, and San had to pass someone from Pledis. That one they had to re-shoot twice because the guy kept forgetting his verse. Jiho hopes Pledis haven’t forked over more than a round or two worth of money over him.

____

It’s easier to spot the girl Hyukwoo was talking about once Jiho get closer to the stairs. Her back is to Jiho, but her height makes her hard to miss. She seems at least as tall as Jiho, even in sneakers, her hair is an expensive, pale shade of blonde tied into a messy low bun, and even from the back Jiho can tell she’s an idol rapper just by the quality of her clothes. The girl is stretching, which Jiho takes a moment to enjoy. Hyukwoo was right. She’s got great thighs on her.

____

“Hey, what’s up?” Jiho says, makes sure her tone is friendly. Even if the girl can’t rap to save her life, keeping those thighs that glorious in this economy is a talent in itself. The girl turns to her, smiling.

____

The thing is, Jiho is gayer than a rainbow-shitting unicorn, and she’s always been aware of that fact, as well as the fact that she needs to stay as deep in the closet as possible short of getting hitched to a guy. That awareness sometimes makes her do things just to keep inquiring minds from wanting to know; things like sometimes being sexist in her lyrics, or laughing at the stupid homophobic jokes everyone around her makes from time to time, or making sure the rumors about her and Kyung secretly dating never go away for long.

____

Or, like now, opening her big mouth and saying, “Aren’t you too pretty to be here, babe?”

____

The girl stops smiling and Jiho has a surreal moment of regretting the loss of that dimple in her life. “Um,” she says. The girl says nothing. Of course she says nothing, Jiho thinks, she can’t talk smack to a judge, buy-in or not. God, but she is pretty. Jiho casts around for anything to redirect her attention, until her eyes land at one of the sound guys setting up nearby. “Oh, uh, name?”

____

The girl points at herself. “Mine?”

____

“Yeah,” Jiho says, faking self-assurance as if her life depends on it. “For the filming. Are we filming?” she adds to the cameramen doing exactly that five feet away from where she’s standing, and notices they’re filming Jay coming over. Not a moment too soon.

____

“I was told I had to go to Jay Park?” The girl sounds unsure. She glances at Jay, frowning. Her voice is deeper than Jiho would’ve thought.

____

“I’m sure it’s fine. You mind?” The latter Jiho addresses to Jay, who is smirking at her, the bastard.

____

“Nope.”

____

One of the producers comes over to them to see what the delay is. “We’ve filmed your reaction shots, right?” he asks, impatient, doesn’t even wait for the girl to nod. “Well go on then, we’ve got four more thousand of you.”

____

“Need a name,” Jiho reminds her. Jay moves so he’s out of the shot and the sound guys finish setting up the girl’s mic.

____

“Mino,” she says, voice clipped. 

____

“Full name, sorry. No stage names on the list.”

____

The girl winces. “Song Minho.”

____

She licks her lips, drawing Jiho’s attention to them, which might be the reason the words come out of her mouth without her stopping to think about them at all. “That’s a boy’s name.”

____

“Really, you can tell?” The girl — Song Minho — says, voice dry. One of her eyebrows goes up. That’s... that’s attitude. Jiho bites at the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

____

“We filming or what?” one of the cameramen says.

____

“Right. Yes.” Jiho nods at him. “Ready when you are.”

____

He counts off from three with his fingers, and Minho starts to rap. Jiho will have to eat one of her snapbacks because she’s good. Better than good. Jiho catches Jay’s eyes and he mimics a whistle. They have to film the entire verse anyway for the broadcast, because the screen time has been paid for, but when they finish Jiho requests another take. 

____

“Did I… Uh, did I do something wrong?” Minho shifts from one leg to the other, peers at Jiho from under her eyelashes despite being the same height, a trick Jiho hasn’t mastered and likely never will. 

____

“No. No. You did gr… good. Just making sure they got everything.” Somewhere, Sanghyun must be laughing at her without even knowing why. She doesn’t feel like a shark at the moment, governed or not.

____

The second take confirms Minho isn’t a fluke. Minho finally flashes her another smile as Jiho hands her a golden necklace and a reminder not to post anything about it until the episode airs. Jay comes closer once Minho is out of earshot.

____

“Tablo said she was good. He wanted her to feature a while back for his album, didn’t work out. Apparently.”

____

“Minho is a weird name for a girl,” Jiho says, still tracking the sway of her hips through the crowd.

____

“You think so? Not really. People name their kids all kinds of crazy shit. Had a Vanilla in my class in middle school.”

____

They move on soon enough, still a sea of people to audition before the day is over. In the middle of a random girl’s verse Jiho remembers that Song Minho was a YG buy-in to be included on Jay and Hyukwoo’s team. The girl gets a pass just because Jiho for the life of her cannot recall what she was even saying.

____

She gets thrown out of her low-key fantasies about finding someone good who a) isn’t on the list, and b) hasn’t been spoken for already, a few people later, when she bumps into her brother. He’s one of a dozen people waiting their turn around San’s chosen filming spot she wanders close to on accident.

____

“Jiho,” Jiseok says. His eyes dart every which way and he shuffles his feet like he's preparing to run. He doesn’t have a mic on him yet. Jiho can’t tell if he doesn’t want to talk because he’s nervous or just because it’s her. When his eyes settle on hers, there's a pained, awkward silence for a heartbeat. 

____

“Taewoon,” she returns. “Um. Who’s your judge?” Which is a stupid question to ask when they are standing this close to San.

____

Jiseok replies anyway. “San E.” A moment later he smiles at her, not even close to warm, and claps her on the shoulder. Jiho is surprised until she catches a cameraman out of the corner of her eye. Right. Forgot about them. She smiles back with just as little sincerity and walks back to her own spot without looking back.

____

The producers are running around as they would on any other show, manhandling the contestants, cameramen and sound techs from time to time as if they are all props. Jiho’s learned to sidestep anyone who looks frazzled enough to be a producer and not pay much attention to them otherwise, so she’s startled when one comes right up to her. He is young, nervous and reminds Jiho of a deer, his eyes darting to the inexpensive watch on his wrist every few seconds. 

____

“Need to re-shoot an audition,” Deer guy says. Jiho is in between auditioning people while the next man in line is being prepped. She cocks her head to the side.

____

“Anything wrong?”

____

“Info should be on your phone,” Deer guy becomes even more agitated after yet another glance at his watch. “Don’t have much time. We’ll go as soon as you’re finished here.”

____

There is precisely zero information on her phone, either in the group chat or in personal messages. Jiho is curious. She doesn’t spend much time on the man in line, dismisses him as soon as he starts his verse with a count of three to hype himself up. She feels bad for him but after going through a solid thousand wannabes of assorted quality, she’s ready to admit that Sanghyun might have had a point. Most of the time if they start out shaky the quality of their verses doesn’t tend to improve over the allotted minute. 

____

The man ends up being the last one in this batch. After she’s done, they start ushering people out and bringing in the next one. Jiho can’t remember more than a few people who had left an impression on her, but she’s given out eight necklaces at this point. She sighs and wishes she could have more coffee. The deer-like producer brings her back to the middle of the field where Kim is already waiting and bolts, more nervous than before.

____

“That guy’s a wreck,” Jiho says conversationally. “Something happen?”

____

“Hm? No, I don’t think so, we’re just a bit behind schedule,” Kim says, distracted, and then raises her head from the screen of her phone to look at Jiho. “We need to re-shoot Kim Daewoong’s audition.”

____

Jiho curls her lip. “Black Nut’s audition.”

____

“No idea,” Kim says. “Kim Daewoong needs to pass. Han’s decision.” She sighs. “Stop looking like that.”

____

Jiho tries to school her expression into something passable. Black Nut has never been her favorite person, for all that they have never worked together. “You forgot to mention he was on the list.”

____

Kim motions for Jiho to come with her, walking briskly to where the crew is setting up a small group from the new batch of people. Jiho’s own watch tells her it’s half past eleven.

____

“He wasn’t on the list,” Kim explains, her voice patient as though she’s talking to a child. “Han Dongchul saw his audition, we dug around a little, and it turns out he might be fantastic for the ratings. Your audition with him is in the top five searches on Naver right now.”

____

“Haven’t you got P-Type for that?” Jiho asks, immediately biting her tongue — figuratively and literally, and it fucking hurts. She must be more exhausted than she thought to start chocking on her own body parts.

____

Kim shoots her a sideways glance. “What are you on about? Anyway, you have to pass him. People already know you were the one to audition him, so we can’t just get another judge instead. And,” she adds, ”there's a high possibility he will be assigned to your team. We could play on your mutual animosity, people eat it up.”

____

Black Nut comes over to prepare for the reshoot and smirks at her, winks when he catches her looking. Jiho doesn’t look away. In retrospect, this shouldn’t surprise her. The show has given the judges enough freedom in allowing to pass and dismiss whoever they like, with the obvious exception of the people from the list, and even those were mostly only paid through the first round. MNET was bound to hamfist at least some semblance of a scenario into place, lest Show Me The Money becomes about music and not about ratings.

____

“We’ll do everything the same way,” Kim says, still business-like. “Just so it looks authentic to those who’ve read the reports on social networks. Try to look…” she gives Jiho a long look and sighs, her entire face transforming with one wry smile. “Like it’s not midnight.”

____

Jiho smiles back at her and turns to give the sound tech better access to her microphone.

____

Black Nut is rolling back and forth on his heels when she steps up to him for the second time in this long, long day, and spares her another smirk before ripping the notepad she’s carrying from her hands. He throws it away but doesn’t grab Jiho by the collar like before. He does step up closer than necessary, but unlike the first time she’s prepared and doesn’t even think of backing away.

____

His audition this time is noticeably better than the original take — for one, Black Nut doesn’t forget his own verse this time, although he still dances around at the end and still pulls his pants down. Jiho stays motionless for a second, and then says, “That was cool. Congratulations,” before he snatches the necklace from her hand. 

____

“Cut,” Kim says. “Yes, we can work with that, thanks. Kim Daewoong? You’ll be going with me to film the rest of your interview,” she tells Black Nut, then adds to Jiho, “and you’ll want to continue with the auditions. It’s the last batch, we should be done in a few.”

____

A few turns into several, and then it’s past two in the morning by the time Jiho calls Jaehwan to pick her up. She’s so tired she doesn’t even feel sleepy, just unfocused and fuzzy at the edges, like an old camera lens. Jiho tries to check her messages, at least those unrelated to work, but keeps reading through them several times without remembering a word, so she just sits on the couch in the dressing room and yawns until Jaehwan takes her home.

____

“Did you, by any chance… forget about the plane?” Taeil asks her a couple days later at gate A21, Gimpo Airport, destination: Haneda, Tokyo. Jiho bristles.

____

“No,” she says. She sounds grumpy even to her own ears. She did, in fact, forget about the plane, or, more precisely, forgot she was supposed to board it today. Even the reminder on her phone is set for the next day.

____

“We were supposed to meet at the office at ten,” he continues. “It’s not ten.”

____

“Last I checked, my Mom was taller.”

____

Taeil sighs. “I don’t know why I bother.”

____

“Me either,” Yukwon adds from behind them. “She could break your dick, you know.”

____

Jiho snorts. “Yeah, and I’ll be demonstrating on you first. You’re all annoying. I was in the studio.”

____

“Your stuff or our stuff?” Minhyuk asks as they finish going through passport control. Jiho thinks she may have gotten the same woman as last time but she isn’t sure and the woman doesn’t let it slip if she even knows who Jiho is. Her poker face is a thing of beauty. She’d probably look at Dalai Lama with the same constipated expression. They are the only ones in first class again, so the boarding is quick.

____

“All your stuff is my stuff,” she says, distracted. “That’s the reason I’m going with you.”

____

“Yeah, nanny Woo will retire when you start wiping your own asses,” says Kyung, coming in last. “Hey stranger. Have fun with the big boys?”

____

“They’ve got nothing on you,” Jiho says, voice dry. 

____

“Are you two dating again?” Taeil asks from his seat.

____

Kyung shrugs. “Are we?” he looks at Jiho, who lets out a long, measured sigh. “Sorry, Taeil. Apparently not.”

____

“Just let me know when to start saving for the wedding present,” Taeil says, closing his eyes. Kyung’s chuckle is warm, and he winks at Jiho before settling down. She sighs again.

____

This time her baggage is considerably heavier, the 25-key controller and the laptop the DAW is installed on carefully packed away. Block B’s schedule is full till the end of May, magazine photoshoots and radio programs and tv-shows piled up on top of each other. Jiho only has a couple appearances planned. The rest of the time in Japan she intends to work on the tunes for Show Me The Money. Hyoseob and her had spent most of the previous day in the studio, polishing up Oasis to the point Jiho can only hear it as a jumble of different elements, not a cohesive whole. She only needs to mix the final version and recheck it once more after letting it rest for a few days, and they are done. It’s her first release in almost a year; it has to be perfect.

____

Japan is a hectic place. Jiho doesn’t get recognized on the streets for the most part, although people sometimes ask for her autograph, assuming, probably, that she is a model or a celebrity because of her height. She doesn’t even have time to breathe after they land, but somehow, in between the check-in at the hotel, and the drive to the venue, and the dress rehearsal, Jaehwan finds her a stylist to take care of her roots so she looks presentable at the concert tomorrow.

____

Being an opening act slash featured artist on a Block B tour is always bittersweet. Jiho has done fine for herself as a songwriter and producer, but the bustle of a concert, being on stage for close to three hours with her heart pumping adrenalin through her veins instead of blood, a mob of people screaming her name and waving lightsticks with her logo on them — that’s a fantasy she hasn’t even told Kyung about. Jiho works hard at not having regrets about anything in her life, but being on someone else’s tour tends to bring her as close to regretting her decision to leave Starship the way she did as she is willing to get.

____

Jiho tells herself to stop feeling melodramatic and pretends that it works.

____

She doesn’t speak polite Japanese that well anymore, remembers barely enough to shoot shit with her friends, so her interview a few days later for a magazine is in Korean. The reporter, a cute plump girl not much older than Jiho, speaks without an accent, which surprises her.

____

“My grandma’s Korean,” the girl explains. Her name is Arisa, and she asks Jiho if she can call her Zico. Jiho flashes her a smirk and the girl laughs, brings her palms to her blushing cheeks. “I know, I know, I must seem like I haven't prepared at all, but I have to interview two more Korean groups this week and I’m afraid I’ll mix you all up if I don’t use stage names.”

____

The interview is the usual tripe: how’s the tour going; the magazine heard Jiho studied in Japan when she was younger, is that true; didn’t she just release her second single in Korea last month.

____

“Oh, wait,” Arisa says over Jiho. “Sorry, we can’t actually feature anything that hasn’t been released in Japan. We’ll just cover this tour. Weren’t you the main writer for Block B’s debut single?”

____

Jiho feels a stab of annoyance, but covers it with a polite, practiced smile. “It’s okay. I’m Block B’s main writer, yes.”

____

“Right, right.” Arisa nods. She wants to know if Jiho will be performing her own songs at the concert, but the interview keeps going back to Block B. Jiho leaves tired and spends the whole drive back to the hotel dozing off in the back seat.

____

It’s her only chance to catch her breath for a while. May is almost over by the time she flies back to Seoul. She wants nothing but shower and sleep in her own goddamn bed for at least twenty of the next twenty-eight blissfully free hours before she has to board another plane and return to Japan. Her plans are thwarted by a message she receives an hour after she’s back on Korean soil. The message is from Jay; there’s an informal judges’ meeting he’s been trying to organize for the past few days. First time Jiho is hearing about it, but she hasn’t been able to check personal messages during the tour.

____

As with many other things, business-wise it would be a bad decision to refuse, for all that she technically can. Jiho sends her agreement via a peace sign emoji and a blushing bear stamp and rubs her face with her palms until it feels like it's on fire. If she forgoes makeup, she can catch a couple hours of sleep before she needs to go, but there could be paparazzi, or fans, or someone could just decide to upload a get-together selfie to Instagram. Jiho catches enough flack for her refusal to wear sexy short dresses everywhere like Hyuna does, she doesn’t need to be branded ‘unkempt’ on top.

____

Makeup done, her hair in artful messy waves around her face — the only style Jiho can reliably replicate on her own, — she compromises with herself by wearing designer sneakers instead of heels, and takes the car out to the club without calling Jaehwan.

____

Only Tablo and Jay are in the booth when she arrives. 

____

“And here I was trying to be fashionably late,” Jiho says as she sits down and tries to flag a waiter in vain.

____

“We’re only waiting for Sanghyun, I think,” Tablo says. He had asked everyone to call him by his name in the show’s group chat, but it’s slow going. He’s been Tablo in her head forever. 

____

“Yeah,” Jay nods. “Everyone else bailed. Apparently, they have lives.”

____

Jiho rolls her eyes at him. There are only two empty glasses and a sole soju bottle on the table, so they must not have been in the club for long. “What a concept.”

____

“Wild,” Jay agrees.

____

“I heard your brother passed his audition,” Tablo tells her while Jay gets up to get them more drinks. “Congratulations.”

____

Jiho shrugs, uncomfortable. “It’s only the first round. And San was way too generous with his passes.”

____

Tablo laughs. “Should I have offered my condolences, instead?”

____

“I’m just saying, my brother has a lot to work on.” Jiho replies. “A couple of people from my old crew passed, maybe I’ll get the chance to work with them. Would be nice.”

____

Jay returns to the table with Sanghyun in tow, hands full of assorted bottles.

____

“Are we choosing teams already? Do I get a say?” Sanghyun asks mildly, sitting down across Jiho, closer to Tablo. She shakes her head.

____

“Not sure any of us have got a say, to be honest. I was told the teams were predetermined by the producers.”

____

“Right, isn’t it all fixed?” Jay nudges her with his shoulder to move and magics up chicken wings from somewhere. “Seonwoong, you were a judge last year, weren’t you? Any insights?”

____

Tablo shrugs, saluting Jay with his beer before helping himself to a wing. “Not all of it. Last year we got one, maybe two people per team from the producers. Few people bought in for season three, though, so that might change. I think ratings are another big factor.”

____

Sanghyun snorts. “God forbid talent was a big factor.”

____

“Speaking of talent, you show them that verse yet?” Jay says. 

____

“What verse?” Jiho turns to look at Tablo, who shakes his head.

____

“Remember that girl you said was weird? The YG buy-in? I told you Tablo here wanted to feature her on his album, right?”

____

“I said her name was weird,” Jiho says defensively.

____

Tablo hands her his phone, the earphones already in the jack. She puts one in her ear and gives the other one to Sanghyun while Tablo is telling them, “We ended up swapping her for someone else, so this is unmixed, fair warning. Just her take, though.”

____

Jiho listens through the flat unmixed beat for a couple minutes. She knows the song, it had charted for weeks after release. Not her favorite track off Epik High’s latest, but solid as usual.

____

Song Minho doesn’t start her verse with a tag so it sneaks up on Jiho; she startles at the ferocity with which Minho is spitting out the lyrics. Sanghyun makes a thoughtful humming noise next to Jiho and Jay salutes both of them with his (fourth?) beer. 

____

“She shows promise,” Sanghyun tells Tablo after Minho’s part ends.

____

Jiho just asks, “Swapped her for fucking _whom_?” with what she thinks is restrained incredulity. Judging by Jay’s hyena laughter, she may have failed at restraint. 

____

“That’s what I said. You’ll never guess.”

____

Tablo sighs and takes another chicken wing from the dish, takes a long sip before answering. “You know Yang bought the win on Show Me The Money last year, right?” He waits for their nods. “Right. So initially he may or may not have bought it for another person from the company. But then, well. They had to give Bobby a boost after he blew up, and our album was the best option available.” Tablo leans back in his seat, looks up at the ceiling. “Corporate life. Never thought I’d be here.”

____

Jiho is still nursing her first bottle of soju; she doesn’t drink much as a rule, so she’s sober enough to read between the lines. She feels her eyebrows shoot up on their own and narrowly avoids chocking on her drink. “Bobby?”

____

Jay is still cackling. “Amazing, right?”

____

“You swapped this for _Bobby?_ ”

____

“It was strongly suggested,” Tablo says and toasts them again. “He’s a good kid. Polite.”

____

“She gonna win this year? I don’t mind. She’s both good and pretty, I could work with that.” Jay leers. “I could work with that all night long. Man, Loco’s going to cry like a little bitch.”

____

“No offense taken,” Jiho says dryly.

____

Sanghyun frowns. “Did YG have someone else in the race last year?” He asks Tablo.

____

Tablo nods. “Both from the same band. Yang was trying to sell him as the next big thing, but…” he shrugs. “Seems like Bobby ended up being the bigger draw. And no, YG didn’t invest much this year, as far as I know,” he adds, turning to Jay. Jiho has given up on counting Jay’s alcohol intake, but then he could always hold it better than her. “Don’t know who’s supposed to win this year.”

____

“If we’re talking ratings, I’d bet on Black Nut,” Jiho says. She still sounds dumbfounded, but... come on. Minho’s verse would have easily made the track better. As a producer, as a songwriter even, it rubs her the wrong way. If featuring Bobby was non-negotiable she would’ve found a way to keep them both. “They even brought him back on the show after I failed him.”

____

Jay is cackling again. “For your team, huh? You should take him even if he isn’t. Imagine his face when he realizes a girl has the power to kick him out. Or,” he points his glass at her, “maybe he’ll write you another Beenzino song.” Jay tries to rap something about Beenzino’s navel and toenails. Jiho tries to tune him out. 

____

Deliver me, thinks Jiho. Out loud she just says, “You’re so fucking drunk.”

____

Jiho has to be in Japan the next day for the tour, but she flies back back to Seoul again less than a day after the concert for a meeting at MNET’s drab office building. It’s just as depressing inside, all off-white and varying shades of beige. Kim and Han Dongchul are waiting in a small conference room; Kim invites her to sit down after exchanging stiff, polite greetings. They go over the filming dates and the general structure of the show before Jiho asks about the teams.

____

“So do we get assigned all four of our picks?”

____

Kim thinks for a long time before speaking. “It’s more complicated than that. We feel that certain judges’ teams will benefit certain contestants better.”

____

The contesants and the ratings, Jiho thinks, but that’s one of those thoughts she’d better keep to herself if she wants to work with these producers again. 

____

“We’ve vetted all of the contestants chosen so far,” Kim continues, shaking her head. “We’ll be filming the second round of solo auditions here in the studio in the coming days. Then we’ll have a meeting with all of the judges to talk about everyone’s preferences. After that the head producer,” Kim nods at Han Dongchul, sitting largely silent beside her, “and I will decide on the final team make up based on the teams’ expressed preference and our expertise.”

____

What a load of crap. Jiho didn’t doubt for a second MNET would squeeze the supposed reality of this show so hard it died, but it still makes her quietly mad.

____

“Of course.” She says. Hesitates. “What if I want to work with someone from the list?”

____

“People on the list have their team assigned before the filming starts,” Han says, speaking up for the first time. “We aren’t… averse to the idea of changing it, but there would have to be a good reason we can build a narrative around. And we’ll have to talk with the agencies about it. It’s less about MNET needing their approval than about maintaining good relationships. I’m sure you understand.”

____

“Of course,” Jiho repeats and stands up. “Thank you for having me. I’ll have my manager send you my schedule so you can plan the meeting.”

____

She bows on the way out, a proper ninety degrees angle, so crisp even her mother would be proud. 

____

If not for that unmixed verse Tablo showed her, Jiho would have decided Minho was a trick of her mind, wanting to latch onto something moderately okay after trying to find a pearl in a sea of more than a few hundred people who generally sucked major amounts of ass. The track was the real deal, though. 

____

Partly she wants to work with Minho because she’s one of the two girls left after the first round of auditions. Chances are she will be the only one to get a pass after the second round, and Jiho understands what it’s like. Partly it’s because with Black Nut almost certainly being assigned to her team she will need someone good in the studio, but much less liable to get a kick in the nuts or a microphone stand shoved up his ass one of these days. Jiho thinks she’ll need all of her patience to deal with Kim Daewoong, and that has never been her favorite virtue.

____

And partly it’s the smile Minho had given her when she took her necklace. Jiho liked that smile. She wants to see it again, for Minho to be something nice to look at while she’s trying to not die from how fucking scripted and fake this show is.

____

Traffic in Seoul being what it is, when Jiho gets home she’s missed her usual dinner time. She grabs a bag of chips instead and orders fried chicken from a nearby place to be delivered; while she’s waiting she might as well work. Every other producing obligation for the foreseeable future over with, there’s only the show left. Jiho stares at the Show Me The Money folder on her laptop, still four samples and half of one inside. Then she takes a deep breath and opens the DAW. Nothing she has so far will fit Black Nut, and she doesn’t have any particular favorites among the rest of the contestants except for Hanhae and Byeol. There is one song she’s been working on since forever, but she doesn’t know if she wants to give it to anyone on the show. She moves the files into the folder anyway, otherwise when the filming starts she won’t have anything to show for it. 

____

June starts with Jiho missing a call from Tablo because she was on the last plane back to Seoul from Japan she has to board for the next few months, and when she calls back he invites her to his studio. 

____

“I’ve got an offer for you,” Tablo is saying over the phone. Jiho can hear a steady hum of people talking on the other end. “And we’re trapped here forever, writing,” there’s a sudden bout of laughter, and Tablo sighs. “Anyway. Will you come by? If your schedule isn’t packed.”

____

“Sure,” Jiho says. “I just landed, nothing on today’s agenda except having dinner.”

____

Someone shouts something Jiho can’t quite catch on Tablo’s end and he says dryly, “Byunghoon would like to humbly request beer. Just…. bring a packet of ramen or something. I don’t think he’s eaten today.”

____

By the time Jiho makes it to the YG building the sky has darkened, heavy clouds hinting on rain, and most of the fans have left their stakeout spots for the day. The security checks her ID, and she texts Tablo while she’s waiting for them to write her name down. The studio Tablo is working in is on the third floor. The sign on the door says ‘HIGHGRND studio’ in shiny, new-looking letters. 

____

Jiho is still looking at them when the door opens, and Tablo ushers her in. She raises a black plastic bag full of expensive imported beer that happily clinks inside. On top of the bottles, because she is nothing if not accomodating, is one packet of the cheapest ramen she could find.

____

Byunghoon ends up being Kush, but he says, “Like, whatever, you know what? With beer this good? You can call me, like, Mount Trash, I ain’t complaining,” before Jiho can adjust to that knowledge, and so stays Byunghoon in her head. She is sorely tempted to call him Mount Trash at least once, but they both need to up the alcohol content in their blood for that one first. Her for working up the courage and him for forgetting it ever happened.

____

“So what are you working on?” Jiho says after some time has passed and they aren’t any closer to talking about work. Byunghoon fishes a cigarette out of his hoodie’s pocket. Jiho is very much not asking what’s in the cigarette.

____

Tablo shrugs one shoulder. “…Things. There are always things to work on.”

____

“Right.” Jiho lets her tone speak for herself. “Do you want me to also work on things?”

____

Byunghoon barks out a laugh and waves a lazy hand. “It’s really just random bits and bobs. Seonwoong’s got a new gig so we’re sorta breaking the studio in.”

____

“So what was the offer?” 

____

“Someone’s canceled on me so I need to find a guest for my radio show. It’s next month.” Tablo waits for her to come to the conclusion herself. His bottle has about a third of the beer left in it, and Byunghoon has finished two. And managed to eat half the packet of ramen dry. Jesus. How long has he been here?

____

The radio thing must be urgent, Jiho surmises. Usually her calendar is filled out at least for two months ahead, but… this is where currying favor might turn out better in the long run. “When is it?” she asks. “Wait, send it to my phone, I’m beat, I’ll forget the date as soon as I see my pillow.” She doesn’t open the message when her phone pings with it a minute later. “Thanks. I’ll see what I can do, it would be awesome.”

____

“Hope you can make it. I know it’s sudden,” Tablo says, and he must be saying something else but Jiho tunes him out because the door opens and someone says, “Still here, boys?”, and then, “Oh, and girls? Hello.”

____

“Er,” Jiho says.

____

“Heya, boss,” says Byunghoon. “Yeah, gonna head home soon. Almost finished here.”

____

“Er,” Jiho says again before standing up and bowing. “Very nice to meet you, President Yang.”

____

“I’ve not been President in years,” Yang says, waving her off. “Surely we can disperse with the formalities. You’re Zico, aren’t you? I’ve heard good things.”

____

Jiho is absolutely not going to disperse with the formalities. She nods. Says, “I was just leaving,” trying to edge closer to the door. Yang doesn’t step aside, instead he smiles at her and inclines his head. “Very well. I was also heading out. Shall we go together?”

____

Can we not, Jiho thinks.

____

She can hear faint preppy music coming from somewhere close, which makes her pause for a second. Someone’s phone? Her phone? Yang notices her reaction when she starts patting her pockets in search of it. 

____

“That must be our newest group. They should be rehearsing right now,” he says by way of explanation. “Let’s take a left here. I’m trying to exercise more, you know how it is at my age,” he chuckles seemingly to himself, but slows down when he notices Jiho isn’t following. “Come on. We’ll take the stairs to the parking lot.”

____

The left brings them closer to the source of the preppy music, which turns out to be a dance studio. The door has a glass window in it, and Jiho slows her pace when she catches a familiar shade of blonde.

____

“Ah,” Yang says. “As I thought.” He is silent for a beat, and then offers, “They will debut soon.”

____

There are five girls in the studio; they move in well-practiced sync that speaks to long months of training together. Minho is easily recognizable, being the only blonde in the room, not to mention the tallest. Her white tee is stained with sweat, her hair in a low ponytail instead of a bun this time. The routine seems to be feisty but not overly sexy, although Jiho isn’t impressed with the song. It sounds like a 2ne1 reject.

____

Not as though they will be needing new songs any time soon. 

____

Jiho admires the long lines of Minho’s bare toned legs and the curve of her ass, lifting her brow when one of the girls slides to the floor and wiggles on her back to pass between the other girls’ legs, singing all the while. That’s one nifty move, Jiho might nick it for herself if she ever gets female dancers for one of her performances. Minho’s verse, when it’s her turn, is so subpar Jiho almost wants to replay her unmixed Born Hater take just to make sure it’s the same person. 

____

“Do you want to come in to watch?” Yang asks, and Jiho almost jumps out of her skin, saved from yelping only by biting on her own tongue by accident. 

____

“Shit!” she says, inelegant. “No, thanks. I’ve, um, seen one of them before.”

____

Yang opens the door to the stairs, motions for her to go first. He’s a polite guy, for all that Jiho trusts him as far as he can throw him. Case in point: he says, “That would be Minho, correct? We are sending her to that show you’re judging on. She’s to be Pink Punk’s leader. A lot of responsibility on the leader.”

____

Pink Punk? Jiho mouthes the name, and it doesn’t get any less cheesy with repetition. That would explain the preppy clothes.

____

Emboldened by the beer, lack of sleep, and an entirely too distracting mental image of Minho in a short schoolgirl skirt Jiho says without thinking, “Too bad you got her onto Jay’s team. I could make her win.”

____

She realizes what she said when Yang chuckle-laughs. They are at the door to the parking lot, which Jiho pushes open herself.

____

“Now, that would be quite a feat, wouldn’t it?” 

____

Well, here Jiho’s foot goes, right in her mouth. The probability of Minho pulling a Bobby is null, she won’t win the season if Heo Gyun himself writes her a song. Two YG wins in a row, that’s just unrealistic. MNET has been accused of favoritism enough as it is. But he needs something from Jay’s team, doesn’t he? Something she can also offer.

____

“If you let me work with her on the show, I’ll sell her,” Jiho says, trying to save the situation. “Sir. I could do a feature for one of yours, too. Maybe even on the show.”

____

“I’ve heard your work. Block B’s records, and that one you just did with Crush? It’s still charting, you’re both quite good. I’m very interested in Crush now. You, though? You are at best a second-rate G-Dragon,” Yang says, not unkindly. He looks her up and down, and the trail of his eyes leaves a sour taste in Jiho’s mouth. She’s clearly been found wanting, and that’s not a feeling she’s used to or enjoys. “And we have the real G-Dragon already. I have no need for cheap knock-offs.” His car beeps, a black SUV in a row of black SUVs; surprisingly, he seems to not have a driver. “I’ve known Jaebum for a long time. He has enough pull to get Minho on the charts in time for her debut.”

____

“Jay couldn’t pull a girl if he paid for it, sir,” Jiho says. “And you haven’t heard my best yet.”

____

Yang chuckles again — it’s getting annoying, fast — and taps himself on the nose. “That is exactly the problem, Jiho,” he says before closing the door of his car. His windows are tinted black, and Jiho is left standing there, glaring at her own car, furious for a reason she can’t articulate.

____

The meeting with the Show Me The Money production crew and the rest of the judges gets pushed back a week. They must be pressed for time because the next episode is scheduled for filming the day after the meeting, which means the contestants will have some eighteen hours to prepare. Jiho, cross-legged and barefoot on her bed, still in pajamas at noon, sighs over the sixty names in a binder in front of her. She really doesn’t remember most of them. Her team has two free slots in to fill, but choosing even those two might present a challenge. Not to mention she’ll have to argue with Sanghyun over his own chosen candidates, and that’s hard to do when she has no idea what these guys can bring to the table.

____

The binder is carefully styled into two parts, divided by a yellow post-it note. Jiho leafs through the first one, absently counting the names. Forty-nine people to go through because their spots were guaranteed by MNET, whether through their agencies buying in, someone owing someone else a favor, Show Me The Money paying people to appear on the show to add credibility to it, or just Han Dongchul thinking someone would bring good ratings. Jiho pointedly rolls her eyes at Black Nut’s ugly mug. 

____

That leaves her with the sixty people who got through on their skills. Jiho feels bad for most of them, although a little exposure goes a long way when you’re that close to being a nobody. Whatever reputation someone might have on the underground scene, it rarely translates to money.

____

She almost flips past Byeol because he’s listed by his name and not as AndUp, but seeing he made it through to the second round is a nice surprise. Jiho marks him up and spends the next quarter hour deliberating between Hanhae and one Jung Hyuntae, whom she at least somewhat remembers, because he had spent the five days leading up to last Christmas holding Jihoon hostage in Seven Seasons’ main recording studio writing one of Bastarz’s songs. In the end she goes with Jung Hyuntae because nepotism is only good in moderation, not to mention she’s reasonably sure Brand New Music will have its team’s judges pick Hanhae for the team now that he made it past the toughest round.

____

She doesn’t have anything scheduled for the day, just studio work. Jiho flops back on the bed and raises her phone above her head, trying to find an okay angle for a selfie. She’s wearing a pink headband to keep her hair back from her face, which has an unfortunate effect of making her forehead appear too large in the frame. Fucking hell. Can’t a girl not worry about her camera angle for one second? Jiho takes the photo anyway out of spite and then types Minho’s name into Naver’s search bar. 

____

Surprisingly, there isn’t much to be found. Minho has a few sparsely populated fan pages, one of which only posts full-body photos of her with no text. Jiho is tempted to join, but even liking a cute girl’s photo on Instagram makes her break out in anxiety hives, so she bookmarks the page instead. Even the craziest of fans haven’t found a way into Jiho’s browsing history. Yet. In the half hour Jiho has allowed herself to be far too curious for her own good she finds out Minho is only a few months younger than her, scrolls through several photos of her with her arms around two other girls in what appears to have been a failed ballad girl group back before Minho was snatched by YG, and listens to a half-hearted attempt at a mixtape from when Minho was a teenager. It’s only a couple tracks untouched by any professional equipment or even quality software. The beat is all over the place, production nonexistent, but the lyrics are unexpectedly solid.

____

The music pauses automatically when someone calls her phone. Jiho glances at the number and groans. 

____

She accepts the call anyway, steeling herself for the conversation. “Hi, Mom.” Jiho says, trying for a light tone. Either it fools her mother or she doesn’t care, because she says:

____

“How are you, sweetie?”

____

“Fine, Mom. I’m actually…”

____

“Working now, right?” Her mother laughs, a high-pitched giddy sound that used to make Jiho happy whenever she heard it back in elementary school. “Same as your brother. Oh, on that subject, he tells me you will be working together on a show?”

____

Oh, her mother. A shrewd woman, when she wants to be. Jiho admires that about her, but it can be inconvenient when she's the one on the receiving end. She sighs, turning her head away from the phone so her mother wouldn’t hear. “It’s not my decision, you know that. I mean, we are on the same show, but we might not work toge…”

____

Her mother’s voice turns stern. “You look out for Jiseok, Jiho. That’s what siblings do. You’ll get married and have children eventually, but he’ll need a long career. Help him while you can. You know he’d do the same for you.”

____

As always, when Jiho talks to her family, there are so many things packed into every little remark that she feels like a very large bull in a very small china shop the longer the conversation takes. She’s always afraid to say the wrong thing to her mother — or, an even scarier prospect, the truth. It used to be different with her brother. Once, when she was younger and stupider, she’d thought she could tell Jiseok anything. 

____

Well. Some things should have stayed hidden.

____

“I’ll try, Mom.” She changes the subject. “How are you? Are you home?”

____

“At your brother’s. Do you need anything? I’ll try to come by next week, if you want.”

____

Jiho doesn’t know if she does; the whirlwind of emotions that is her mother can be tiring. In any case, it’s a moot point. Her mother never comes by Jiho’s apartment, a weird but firm belief of hers that a girl will be fine on her own while her grown-ass son needs weekly visits to make sure his fridge is full and his laundry basket is empty. Jiho keeps saying she’s good until her mother ends the call.

____

It’s barely three in the afternoon, but Jiho already feels scrubbed clean from the inside with a jagged knife. She shuffles to the coffee machine, remembering halfway through the espresso cycle she isn’t supposed to drink any more coffee for at least two more weeks, and grabs a coke from the fridge instead. 

____

Her studio is in disarray, half-finished sketches she draws whenever she is stuck on a song covering the multitude of cables on and around the table. Jiho searches about to find her mouse. The laptop wakes up, still on the same DAW screen she’d left it a couple days ago. Impulsively, Jiho clicks away from the project she’s working on and opens the half-written beat from the SMTM folder to add piano to it. The keyboard plugged into the DAW is far from a proper piano, but playing it helps her relax, and she needs to unwind after thinking about Jiseok being a snake and ratting her out to their mother. 

____

She doesn’t have any songs ready for Show Me The Money by the time the meeting rolls around. There are at least three in bits and pieces, as well as something she might like for herself that maybe calls for Kim Haesol’s voice, too, if Jiho can swindle Hyoseob out if his number.

____

Kim, the producer from the first day of filming, waves to Jiho from the security booth and slaps a pass into her hand. “Have you finalized the contestants for the team?” she asks, dragging Jiho to the elevator. 

____

“No?” Jiho says, bemused. “Was I supposed to? I thought you were going to decide that during this meeting…”

____

Kim’s smile is dry. “Would’ve been a much shorter meeting. It’s okay. No one ever remembers to, even though,” she adds with a pointed look at Jiho, “we do write it out in the contracts.”

____

Jiho laughs awkwardly and they both fall silent until they reach the conference room. It’s large — much larger than the one Jiho had been in before, and less drab, white walls and dark wood instead of a beige assault of the rest of the building. Sanghyun is already there; Jiho nods at him and slides into her assigned chair, taking out her notes in the binder she has with her. 

____

“Come bearing gifts?” Sanghyun asks, deadpan as usual.

____

“Sorry I didn’t contact you about the team,” Jiho says. “Looks like we were supposed to make a joint decision before the meeting.”

____

Sanghyun waves her off. “Too much work I’m not being paid for. Which lucky guys do you want?”

____

Jiho bites her lip and counts to five, because if she counted to ten every time someone’s phrasing ticks her off, she’d never have time for anything else. “AndUp and Incredivle”, she says instead. 

____

Sanghyun hums. “I’m fine with either. Fair warning, no idea who that second one is. But I went ahead as the leader and got Ja Mezz for our team, so you can choose one, too.”

____

“Oh.” Both his decision and the name are surprising, but she should have expected him to pull the seniority card at some point. At least the guy he’s chosen is okay. She had worked with Ja Mezz last December, during the same period Jung Hyuntae was living in the Seven Seasons’ studio on the purest diet of beer and Jihoon’s tears. Jiho doesn’t remember his real name, but she’d had to invite him to her own studio to finish the song in time, something she prefers to reserve for friends. He had smoked until her asthma played up, and impossibly drank more coffee than her.

____

While Jiho is flipping through the binder trying to find Ja Mezz, the conference room fills in with the rest of the judges and a few more people from the production side. Han comes in last and nods to everyone; as if she was waiting for his signal, Kim starts talking. She does away with the greetings and niceties, going straight to the the heart of the matter.

____

“We’re all scheduled for filming tomorrow, and we still have a lot to set up, so if everyone please lets us know their two picks we can move on to discussing the changes within the list.” She claps her hands once to get their attention. “Let’s go seniority-wise. Team Brand New Music?”

____

San leafs through his notebook, frowning. “Yeah, we wanted to go with Jung Hanhae and Microdot, er, Shin Jaeho? If no one wants them,” he adds, rubbing the back of his neck. No one says anything to that and he visibly deflates. Jiho is just glad Hanhae got chosen. She’ll have to take him out to Cakeshop to celebrate.

____

Tablo and Jinusean are next. Jiho almost misses Jinwoo say, “…and that Jung Hyuntae guy, too, I guess.” 

____

She seats up straight and blurts out, “Wait, I wanted him,” just to have everyone turn to her with identical expressions of almost comical befuddlement on their faces. Jiho curses in her head and tries to cover up her near-miss with, “But of course, if team YG would like to work with him, team ZiPal doesn’t mind.”

____

Sanghyun snorts next to her at the mention of his name, but he sounds amused rather than offended. When it’s their turn to speak, he doesn’t stumble over Byeol’s name. Ja Mezz comes up as Kim Sanghee, which Jiho surreptitiously writes in her notes. If she must pretend to remember more about him than his tobacco obsession for a few weeks, she might as well start with his name. 

____

“Glad there was no conflict this time,” Kim says and turns a page in her organizer, a book fatter than Jiho’s arm. “Now, we’ve got a few changes within the list, I think I mentioned that. We’ve got a request from YG Entertainment to change teams for Song Minho, so she’ll be under team ZiPal instead of team AOMG. We’ll have to move people around a bit to cover this so late in the process. Let’s see what we can d…”

____

Jay interrupts her. “The fuck?” He’s glaring daggers at Jiho. All Jiho can do is shrug in his general direction.

____

“The fuck you stealing people from me, Jiho?” Jay repeats. Jiho feels her hackles rise.

____

“Your property, is she now?” Her smile must look ugly, but nobody is filming yet. Although that would be a good piece of entertainment if spun correctly, a voice says at the back of her mind. She doesn’t pay it any mind. 

____

“We were already writing for her, you fucking cunt,” Jay spits. Hyukwoo looks uncomfortable, and all three of them jump when Kim slams her organizer on the table.

____

“I do hope everyone finds their _fucking_ professionalism, and soon,” she says. “Team AOMG, that was a direct request from the contestant’s agency and we at MNET feel it would be best for the ratings to comply with it. Any complaints?”

____

“I’ll give you complaints,” Jay mutters, not quite low enough, but shuts up.

____

Sanghyun raises a hand. “As fun as that’s been, I understand we have to get rid of one person now, right?”

____

“Yes. As I said, we’ll need to move people around. Han Dongchul,” Kim gestures at the main producer, “and I feel it might be good if contestant Jung Jaewon became part of team AOMG instead.”

____

Jiho can’t believe she got Minho on her team. Not after Yang’s words. The only thing that keeps her from believing this is a hallucination is the lack of Minho in a bikini in this room. Preferably straddling Jiho’s lap. Buoyed by this mental image, she says, “Producer, wait. Can we give them Kim Daewoong instead? Him and Song Minho have,” she hesitates for a moment and charges forward after a breath, “a rivalry going. Could be good for the ratings if they were on different teams. You could, I don't know, make a story out of it.”

____

Sanghyun is definitely snorting now. Jiho catches Tablo’s eye and he winks at her without changing his facial expression.

____

“Do they?” Kim asks. Jiho nods. She has no idea if they’ve even met, but Black Nut has beef with everyone, like a particularly aggressive chihuahua. He won’t mind playing up the narrative if it gives him more screen time.

____

Kim nods and opens her mouth only to be interrupted by Jintae’s cough.

____

“If Black Nut is being traded around we’d like to get him for team Brand New Music.”

____

There is nothing Jay could reasonably say to this — Jintae is both his senior on the show and as a rapper. Jiho can see he isn’t happy, but he gives Jintae and San a jerky nod. After they finish juggling the rest of the buy-ins around and confirming the filming schedule for tomorrow, Jiho hovers near the doorway. She doesn’t like feeling like an asshole.

____

She catches Jay by the shoulder when he makes for the elevator. 

____

“What?” he barks.

____

“Come on, Jay.”

____

“They gave us the guy with a criminal record,” Jay hisses to her. There’s no one in the room save for the two producers and Jintae, who are talking in the opposite corner of the room in low voices. 

____

Jiho shrugs. “I went to ask Yang if he wanted to allow Song Minho to work with me on the show, and he laughed in my face.”

____

“So you did steal her from me?”

____

“Did you even hear me? I said he refused,” Jiho takes a deep breath. “I owe you a drink, sure, but that shit they pulled? It’s the ratings game. You know as well as I do they want us at each other’s throats for ‘added realism’.” She makes air quotes around the words with her fingers.

____

“She’s not good enough that I'd do that,” Jay says. His jaw works for a moment until he lets out a sigh. “You owe me, like, a dozen drinks. Several times.”

____

“Whoa. Trying to drown your sorrows in alcohol?”

____

“No,” Jay says, moving towards the elevators. Jiho follows him, glad they’re at least back to their usual level of working rivalry-fueled animosity. “I just lied. She is good enough. Fuck, I can’t believe I have to work with Daniel Kim.”

____

“They won’t be showing his mug shot on the show, don’t be a drama queen. What even was he booked for? Like, molly? It’s not like he killed somebody,” Jiho says reasonably. Jay rolls his eyes at her and steps into the elevator. She waves him off: better let him cool down before they start filming tomorrow.

____

She takes the stairs and bumps into Kim in the parking lot. 

____

There’s no time like the present, thinks Jiho. She starts with, “Say. Was there any reason YG changed their mind about their buy-in’s team?”

____

Kim wrinkles her nose at the term, opening her car’s door. “Yang Hyunsuk’s personal request,” she says anyway. “You have ‘spirit’. Apparently,” she adds, “you remind him of young G-Dragon.”

____

Jiho is going to burn every G-Dragon album she owns. Even the limited editions.

____

A message is waiting for her when she wakes up her phone to call for pickup. It’s from Sanghyun; she must have missed it talking with Kim. The message says, _'Well played. You’ll make a good shark yet.'_ Jiho groans and doesn’t reply, no matter how rude it is. 

____

She is still standing in the parking lot, fiddling with her phone and waiting for Jaehwan to rescue her from the parking lot basement when the only silver lining in the whole fiasco opens the door. 

____

Minho startles when she sees her, raises a hand in greeting. “Hello,” she says, her voice as awkward as the gesture.

____

“Hey,” says Jiho. Minho is wearing an inconspicuous long-sleeved t-shirt with a weird print and ripped jeans with something drawn on them, pretty without makeup the way Jiho can only aspire to be. Jiho doesn’t wear any if she knows there won’t be any cameras around, unlike her mother and those of her friends who like the stuff, but she’s very much aware of how makeup improves her appearance. 

____

She breaks the silence with, “Did you have a Money meeting, too?”

____

Minho smiles at her, tight but not displeased. “Mm-hm. You’d think we were filming a drama. There are _narratives_. At one point they gave someone an honest-to-god script.”

____

“Sounds a lot like ours,” Jiho remarks. “Did they tell you about your teams?”

____

Minho nods, coming closer to Jiho. There’s a wariness about her that reminds Jiho of a skittish cat. “Mhm. They let me know about the change." Minho clears her throat and pushes the few stray hairs that got out of her ponytail away from her face. “I’d say I was surprised, but honestly, having Black Nut in the same room as me kind of overshadowed getting another producer. Apparently, we’re rivals now, and he’s a method actor.”

____

“Listen,” Jiho says. “I wanted to apologize for being an asshole during the auditions.”

____

Minho cocks her head to the side, considering Jiho with the now-familiar look from under her lashes. It’s calculating rather than flirty, but has about the same effect on Jiho. “You really were.” Minho says after a pause. Her expression is still tight around the eyes and the smile is more commercial than real, but the words aren't biting. “Thanks for admitting it. Apology accepted.”

____

At the risk of putting her foot back in her mouth, Jiho says, “I just didn’t think much of buy-ins.”

____

Minho’s smile twitches and becomes wider and warmer, reaching her eyes. “You know you’re not supposed to say it.”

____

“What, ‘buy-in’? What does MNET call you, ‘miracle babies’?” Jiho laughs, pleased about getting a real smile out of Minho. It’s always difficult to work with someone who’s pissed at her, as half of Block B can attest. She's not the easiest person to please in the studio as it is, too demanding and not willing to settle for anything short of perfection. She licks her lips. "How about we start over? I'm Jiho."

____

Minho's eyes are bright and playful when she inclines her head in acknowledgement. 

____

The sound of Jiho's ringtone, loud across the empty parking lot basement, is so sudden Jiho bites her tongue and swears, bringing a palm to her chest to calm her racing heart. She had forgotten she came down to wait for her manager and not to chill with a cute girl.

____

“I’m on the fourth floor,” Jaehwan informs her, brisk and to the point as usual, before ending the call. Jiho checks the time on the phone screen — she and Minho have been chatting for a good half hour.

____

Jiho gives her a long look, absent-mindedly rubs her palms down her thighs. Minho meets her stare for several seconds before her eyebrows start to climb up. “What?” Minho asks, curious but no longer skittish.

____

“Do you want to come with me? I’ve got a studio at home and something I think you might like for your solo stage,” Jiho says on impulse.

____

Minho glances at her phone, tapping a rhythm against the back panel with two fingers, and then bites her upper lip before shaking her head. “Sorry,” she says. “I’d love to, but I’m technically not allowed to go anywhere without my manager’s permission, and she’s supposed to pick me up from here in half an hour.”

____

“Oh.”

____

Jiho is almost at the stairs when Minho adds, “Jiho. Wait.” 

____

She turns around to see Minho hold out her phone.

____

“Let me give you my phone number. I can’t call much since I live in a dorm with the girls, we can’t disturb our neighbors too much, and everyone goes to bed too early…” Minho tapers off and laughs, holding her palm over her mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to complain. Anyway, I can text. If you send me what you have, I’ll write you something back and we can see how it fits with your idea?”

____

Jiho thinks she’d rather listen to her talk about her roommates, if only because it Minho is more animated than she’s been since she came into the parking lot, and she has a nice, open laugh that makes her face both less pretty and more captivating. 

____

“…Yeah.” She says after a moment, opens her phone to ping it over Minho’s. “I’ll send you the link when I get home. It’s just a rough guide, nothing muc…” They are interrupted once again by Jiho’s very insistent manager calling yet again, making her curse and throw Minho a wink and a grin. “Shit. Gotta go! See you!”

____

She bounds up the stairwell, smiling like a maniac all the while and probably scaring the pigeons sitting on the windowsills.

____

By the time Jaehwan drops her off at her apartment building she has two more ideas for Minho’s songs. She has always found it much easier to be creative while trying to impress someone: in an ideal world it would be herself, but a cute girl works just as well where her ego is concerned. Jiho is not complaining as long as it keeps her motivated. Mostly she’s just happy she doesn’t have to write for Black Nut. 

____

For a while she fiddles around with the guide she wants to send Minho, but she's not in the mood for such a heavy song, so Jiho instead works on the beat she’d thought of in the car. It’s only the bridge and the chorus for now. She’s too lazy to think up actual lyrics to go with it, so she just writes down generic crap like “Okay? Okay!”, “High high!” and “Yeah yeah” to create a makeshift verse. After four hours it’s still not ready to be sent anywhere, even as a rough guide, not to mention Jiho shouldn’t text women she barely knows this late in the evening. 

____

Still; she wants to at least start a conversation, let Minho know she appreciates the gesture of peace. She can’t think of anything to say that isn’t an inappropriate question or a joke too weird for the first day of proper acquaintance, which leaves a photo. Jiho thumbs through her photostream but there’s nothing she’s shot in the last few weeks that wasn’t taken for and posted on her social media accounts. After rejecting several shots she sends the selfie she took in the morning, captioning it with _‘meanwhile: living alone is great!!’_ It’s a risk but Jiho considers sense of humor to be even more important in a girl than nice thighs. Not that she’s thinking about Minho in those terms, but a little flirting never killed nobody.

____

Jiho nods to herself and hits send. She forgets about her phone while she’s in the shower, and when she comes back into the studio she has a message from Minho. It’s a photo of a very short-legged ugly-cute cat staring straight into the camera with a haughty look on its short face. _‘Princess song johnny’_ , the caption reads, making Jiho bark out a laugh at the name, _‘would like you to apologize for making her mama cry bc her roomies are already in bed and she cant write music’_.

____

Jiho is glad for the cat’s photo the next morning, because she can look at Princess Song Johnny’s disdainful furry face instead of kicking the assistant producers in their collective nuts. The shooting is postponed twice because someone forgot to hook up the lights, so they start almost two hours later than expected, by which time the rest of the judges sport expressions so sour a week-old milk bottle would get jealous. 

____

The stage is absolutely ridiculous; the judges are looking down at the contestants from their raised platforms like Roman Emperors at their gladiators. It’s grandiose bordering on pompous, what with the the giant clock counting down the allotted minute right in Jiho’s face and the bullseye-inspired design on the contestants’ platform. 

____

As far as Jiho knows, the contestants themselves don’t know whether they will pass, save for those who were on the list. Kim said it gave them better reaction shots, since most of the contestants weren’t exactly Oscar-worthy actors. She cranes her neck down from her team’s couch trying to see Minho in the sea of people sitting on rows and rows of cheap plastic chairs behind the platforms. There are about a hundred people left. Most are jittery. The buy-ins, on the other hand, are instantly recognizable, too confident about their progress compared to the nervous wrecks around them. 

____

Minho must be in a hoodie, because Jiho can’t find her at a glance despite her being one of the handful of girls left at this stage and the only blonde. Sanghyun shifts near her and she turns her attention back to the platform. The fail/pass system on the screen is rigged to display the results based on yesterday’s meeting, and they will record the comments later in the evening, so for now all the judges have to do is sit around and look magnanimous. 

____

“Do we even need to do anything?” she mutters.

____

“Pretend to be engaged,” Sanghyun says. “And let me know when one of ours comes through, I didn’t look at the photos.”

____

They get through several fails they can cut later at first to check the angles, and then stop and wait some more until Han and the director talk through the changes.

____

Jiho is bored, so she takes out her phone. She hovers over Minho’s name in the chat and then presses down. _‘BORED’_ she types in all caps, adding a crazy bear sticker for good measure. Less than a few seconds pass before Minho replies with her own sticker, and Jiho spends the next couple minutes in a sticker battle, biting her lips to try and stop herself from grinning. 

____

Sanghyun coughs to get her attention. Jiho flicks him a sheepish smile, but only puts her phone back in her pocket when the lights go on again. 

____

“Oh, this one is ours,” she says when the MC announces the next name.

____

“This kid? Jesus,” Sanghyun shakes his head. “Well, at least my ears aren't bleeding, that's a good sign… Jaewon, is it?”

____

“Maybe? I’m not good with names.”

____

“I see he’s one pretty rapstar.” Sanghyun winks, making Jiho snicker. Not something she’d want to hear about herself in a rapping competition, but Sanghyun is right, the kid is solid during his one minute. Jiho makes sure to whistle once and take her sunglasses off to turn to Sanghyun with exaggerated approval on her face, just so the director could have a variety of reaction shots to choose from.

____

She doesn’t have to fake a reaction when Minho comes out for her minute. Jiho elbows Sanghyun, forgetting about proper etiquette in favor of appreciating the determined glint in Minho’s eyes, and says, “Our second buy-in.”

____

“The one you and Jaebum had that pissing contest over?” Sanghyun asks. Jiho shoots him a sideways glance to see if the turn of phrase had been deliberate, but he’s busy looking Minho over. “For all our sakes, I hope her verse on Seonwoong’s song wasn’t dumb luck. If she’s Yang’s, she’ll be here a while.”

____

“She’s legit,” Jiho promises, sounding more certain than she feels. She hadn’t asked Minho for anything recent, however much she was impressed by the early songs she’d managed to find. 

____

When Minho starts rapping, it becomes immediately clear Jiho’s doubts are unfounded. Sanghyun nods, one of his only outward expressions of satisfaction with the performance. Jiho gives a few reactions of her own for the cameras and can’t stop a slow grin spreading across her face when she looks at Jay. His expression could curdle milk and he is pointedly not looking at Jiho.

____

“Shows he knows talent when he sees it, a good quality in a label owner,” Sanghyun says suddenly.

____

By some miracle Jiho doesn’t jump in her seat, instead letting out a deliberate, slow breath. “Jesus. Are you a mind-reader?”

____

“I,” says Sanghyun, turning to her and tipping his imaginary hat, “am a label owner, same as Jaebum. We want the best for ourselves. He would’ve tried to tempt that girl away from YG in a heartbeat if she gave him the time of day.”

____

Jiho snorts, unable to stop herself. “He wishes.”

____

Sanghyun shakes his head, the corner of his mouth twitching up. “Not anymore, obviously. Everyone knows what claimed territory looks like. You may as well have tattooed your name on her necklace instead of the show's logo.”

____

Jiho sits up straighter, giving him a wary look. She didn’t… out herself, did she? There are probably people who have figured out she's gay on their own, the same way she's figured some other people on her own and kept her mouth shut. The industry operates on a don't ask, don't tell principle anyway, but Jiho would rather imagine only the three people she's ever come out to know about her.

____

“Good for you,” Sanghyun continues with no indication he noticed her change in attitude. “You have to undercut the competition. You can be friends after the contracts are signed.”

____

“I don’t have a label,” Jiho says, but Sanghyun shushes her because it’s P-Type’s turn and he wants to see what the veteran rapper has up his sleeve.

____

When Jiho consults her phone it tells her they’ve talked for a good half hour and she can’t for the life or money remember anyone performing after Minho. As far as she's concerned it speaks more to the quality of the remaining contestants than to her absent-mindedness, but she tries to pay more attention to the rest. The recording drags on forever; several centuries crawl by before someone finally kills the lights and she’s allowed to stand up from the couch and stretch. 

____

They’ve got another recording scheduled in a couple days for producer stages, just a week before the show starts broadcasting and Jiho can obsess over the troll comments on Twitter to her heart’s content. 

____

“Please stay around to film the comments,” one of the assistant producers rattles off in a tired monotone without even looking at the judges once they are all off the platforms. “Use the previously assigned rooms. Producer Kim is available for inquiries as usual.”

____

Jiho is whisked away to have her makeup touched up and doesn’t see Minho for the rest of the day. Recording the comments section tires her out so much even the thought of going out fills her with dread, so she refuses when Sanghyun asks. Jiho does feel a pang of regret at missing a business opportunity to mingle with the industry heavyweights but she has long since learned that all work and no rest make Jiho a very dull girl with puffy slits for eyes and her appearance is at least a third of her job. Gotta look after herself. Not to mention she doesn’t have the luxury of just drinking a triple espresso to approximate what a living person looks like. Maybe next month. She sighs and shakes her head, trying to shake out the nonsensical, coffee-deprived thoughts.

____

Jiho contemplates calling her brother out of some lingering sense of familial duty, staring at the contact list the whole ride home. She finally caves in after she gets in bed, but scrolls up at the last moment on impulse and calls Minho.

____

She waits through seven trills until the phone is picked up on the other end. “Hey,” Minho says. There’s an echo in the call, so Jiho asks out of curiosity:

____

“Where are you?”

____

“Um, bathroom.” Minho lets out an embarrassed chuckle. “My roommate is doing yoga in our bedroom and the rest of the girls were in the kitchen, I couldn’t figure out where to go fast enough, so…” She groans. “I’m an idiot. They’ll be joking about this forever now. I'm doomed to an eternity of being elbowed in cars and snickered at.”

____

Jiho laughs. She doesn’t feel as tired as she had before, but the warm, dry humor in Minho’s voice is acting as a pacifier, making her soft and sleepy. Which is the entire reason she says, “Yeah, I bet they think I’m your secret girlfriend now.” She freezes when it slips out, instantly terrified, but Minho only groans again.

____

“I’m so not living this down. It’s actually the first time someone called me in the dormitory.”

____

Jiho can’t help but snort. “Surely not.”

____

“The first time I’ve picked up,” Minho amends. Jiho can still hear the smile in her voice. “I told you I’m not a phone person.”

____

“I feel special,” Jiho says. She is punch-drunk on her exhaustion, so it’s harder to censor the easy flirt coming to her as natural as breathing when it comes to cute girls. Fortunately, Minho either doesn’t mind or doesn’t notice; she also doesn’t reciprocate, though, which makes Jiho’s mood sour a little.

____

Then Minho says, softy, “Yeah, you are,” and Jiho’s brain short-circuits on her. She can swear she hears static inside her head until Minho continues, “I wanted to be G-Dragon when I grew up, you know? And you’re, like. Doing it.” There’s a shuffle and a dull thump causing Minho to swear. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m sitting in the bathtub now.”

____

Jiho dutifully tucks this mental image away into her wank bank and sits up in her bed, groping around for that mug of tea she brought with her. “I wish people would stop comparing us.”

____

“I’m not comparing you. She’s like… up there.” Minho is silent for a moment. “Er, sorry. But the thing is, you could be that big. I think.”

____

“Thanks for the vote of confidence”, Jiho says dryly.

____

“They don’t even let us write our songs or choreograph our own dance routines,” Minho says. She sounds bitter, but resigned, as though this isn’t the first time she’s talking about it. As though she's lived with this for so long she accepted it. “I mean, they do, no one’s burning our notebooks, Yang just doesn’t like anything a girl writes unless it’s in Kwon Jiyong’s handwriting. And the concept they gave us… I don’t know. I wanted to be authentic, you know? I thought I could be true to myself even in a group. Guys can.”

____

They say nothing for a while. Jiho isn’t sure what the protocol is for this situation. Should she try to offer her condolences? Make a joke? They are barely friends, and yet even the thought about offering insincere assurances that everything will turn out fine rubs Jiho the wrong way.

____

Minho heaves a sigh for the last time into her phone's mic, sending a rush of static Jiho's way, and adds in a much brighter voice, “I knew you, did I tell you that? Back at the auditions. Obviously they told us who’ll be judging, but even before that. Jihoon talks about you a lot, he really respects your, quote, “insane work ethics”. Feel free to embarrass him with this information.”

____

“Jihoon who?”

____

“Pyo Jihoon. Do you know more than one?”

____

“Pyo Jih… Block B’s Jihoon?” Jiho is so surprised she swallows wrong and has to cough for a solid minute. “How do you even know him? I didn’t know he had a girlfriend!”

____

That would be the absolute worst.

____

“Ew. He’s one of my best friends,” Minho says. “I met him back in school. We meet up for these stitch and bitch sessions sometimes. Only we got into wine and cheese way more than stitching, even though Jihoon gets massive wine headaches. This information you are not allowed to embarrass him with.”

____

“Pity,” Jiho says on autopilot, still a little dumbstruck. Minho was just outside her social circle all this time and Jihoon has never said anything about her? Oh, she’ll find what to embarrass him with. On live TV.

____

By the time they hang up Jiho manages to pry more stories out of Minho, mostly about her time in school. They both turn out to like drawing, although Minho insists she can't in good conscience call her attempts anything but doodles. Jiho makes her promise to send a sketch her way and finds herself genuinely interested, even though it might be shit. She promises to tell Minho if it is, but secretly thinks she might like it anyway. So far everything Minho does is pretty endearing. 

____

It’s rare for Jiho to take an interest of someone from the industry and it’s even more rare that she becomes friends with the people she likes. She met most of her friends a lifetime ago, before her work made her successful and busy in equal measures. She hasn’t been out with Hyuna in several months and hasn’t talked to Okjeong in a few, but they’ve been in her life for such a long time, these months of no contact seem like nothing when they make time to hang out. It’s different with Minho; Jiho wants to constantly remind her of herself, to make sure Minho doesn’t relegate her to an industry acquaintance one only remembers when it’s time to ask for a favor or make a call on a TV-show she doesn't want to inconvenience her real friends with.

____

Okjeong must feel Jiho being sentimental all the way from his hole-in-the-wall apartment, because he calls her two days after that. Jiho is in the middle of filming her part of the producers’ stage for SMTM, or, to be precise, she’s in the middle of her face being blotted and fresh coats of blush and lip gloss applied for the second time in as many hours. 

____

“Okay, hear me out: there is a guy,” Okjeong starts. The girl doing Jiho’s makeup is hovering close by, nervously watching for signs of makeup smudged by Jiho’s phone. 

____

“Congrats, when’s the wedding?”

____

“Not for me, you prick.”

____

“Oh, is it for me, then? I’ll pass,” Jiho says. 

____

“Not that kind of guy, geez, what’s up with you?” Okjeong’s tone turns suspicious. “Have you met someone? Is your mom trying to marry you off? You don’t usually jump straight to conclusions like that.”

____

Jiho laughs. She can just imagine him squinting into his phone and trying to remember if she’d said anything about her matrimonial plans last time they talked. He was always one suspicious motherfucker. She'd bet Okjeong is planning to call their other mutual friends next just to make sure she isn’t hiding anything big from him.

____

“I swear I’ll invite you to the wedding in either of those unfortunate instances. Come on then, what are you talking about? I’ve got a spare minute and then I gotta go, the PD is trying to kill me with his glare.” 

____

“Right,” he says. “I’ll send you the link to his, like, work or whatever, but you said you wanted someone different to collab with, right?”

____

“You got me Zion.T’s number?”

____

Okjeong snorts so hard he has to cough. “No. His name is Kwon something, goes by Dean. I think he’s, like, American? Hyoseob actually knows the guy, swears he does good R’n’B and wants to do something in Korean by the end of the year, give him a listen and a ring maybe? If you hit it off, you get a collab and I get to not listen you go on and on about your hard-on for Kim Haesol anymore.”

____

“My future song of the year award is a joke to you, isn’t it,” Jiho says. The makeup artist makes a distressed sound at her and Jiho guiltily pulls the phone away from her cheek, mouthes ‘sorry’ before something Okjeong said catches up to her. “Wait, Hyoseob knows him? Why didn’t he call me himself?”

____

“Might have something to do with the aforementioned hard-on for Kim Haesol, dude.” Okjeong’s voice is drier than Jiho’s bleached hair. "You stop pestering Hyuseob to hook you up with Zion.T every time you guys talk, he might start returning your phone calls."

____

“Don’t call me dude,” Jiho says, still pouting. The PD has abandoned subtle hints and is advancing at her position with a look of someone who isn’t afraid of drastic measures. Jiho ends the call and smiles with blindingly obvious fake cheerfulness in the PD’s general direction before turning back to the makeup artist and taking a deep breath.

____

She spends the next week so busy it feels as though an age goes by before she can take another one. Jiho is so bone-deep exhausted the only thing that penetrates her haze is the realization she’d missed Snoop Dogg’s brief addition to the Show Me The Money cast. Oh, sure, she’s there physically when they record the cypher, gives the cameramen reaction faces at appropriate intervals and probably makes a comment or two, but she barely remembers that whole day. She wouldn’t even be sure she made it there if not for the lack of rabid PDs on her phone chewing her out for missing a shoot. 

____

“I just… Don’t remember him? Did I even say hello?” Jiho says, miserable, into her phone. The ice in her glass clinks, slowly melting down. She’s been nursing this beer for half an hour. The club is more of a ghost town at this time of day, when the sky is only just beginning to darken, Seoul's bright neon signs beginning to pop against the skyline. The DJ is checking his equipment; no one spares Jiho the second glance, which is the main reason she goes here. It’s nice not being fussed over for once or being reminded that women aren’t supposed to drink, never mind that she rarely buys more than two glasses of whatever is her poison of choice on those rare evenings.

____

“Yeah, I could tell.” Minho says. “You were a zombie. I think you didn’t recognize me when I was on. I did good, by the way.”

____

Jiho feels even more miserable. “Oh God. You’re right. Fuck, sorry. I’ve just been swamped…”

____

“With the show stuff and solo stuff. I know, I know. I was having you on. How’s that going?”

____

“Backburner.” Jiho sighs. “I’m stuck on your final song.”

____

“Okey Dokey? I sent you my rough draft like a week ago, did you not get it?” 

____

Little by little the sound of Minho’s voice makes Jiho calm down and forget she was ever upset. Minho must be at home, since she never picks up in the studio, even if she’s only observing or recording parts to be mixed up into a generic vocal pool for background vocals later. They text sometimes but Jiho likes hearing Minho’s voice. It’s easier to admit when she’s drunk, even to herself.

____

Jiho rolls her eyes. Right. The thing making the edges of her vision soft is definitely not half a glass of beer. She lets out a long breath. Is this what getting old feels like? She can swear she used to be able to go at least a week on two hours of sleep.

____

“Uh-huh, you’re a veritable grandma,” Minho says wryly when Jiho posits the idea.

____

“Glad you agree,” Jiho replies, making sure her voice sounds absolutely serious before she cracks up. “But no. Okey Dokey is fine, I told you I wrote that one way before the show was announced. As soon as we finalize your verse we’re good to go. It’s the second one. No idea about the theme.”

____

“We’re filming that one in a month, you’ve still got time. I’m not even thinking about it until after I finish my diss.”

____

Jiho’s beer is mostly water by the time they finish talking. The club is filling up, so Jiho quickly downs whatever’s left and stands. One of her feet has fallen asleep; she bites out a curse trying to massage it with one hand and find enough cash to leave on the table with the other. She leaves more than she owes for the beer, as usual, and leaves through the back door, also as usual. The club is a dingy little place, hidden away in an alley behind a large karaoke building. Back when Jiho’s first more-or-less serious girlfriend brought her here for the first time, it used to have a dim, but still working sign advertising the name of the club, but the lights have all stopped working since then and now the sign is harder to find than the front door. 

____

Jaehwan is sleeping in the front seat of the car, his hands still on the steering wheel. Jiho taps on the glass, harder when the first few knocks fail to wake him up. He jerks awake, hits his head on the ceiling, and Jiho’s ride home is accompanied by Jaehwan’s grumbling about the perils of his job.

____

“A couple more rehearsals and you could try selling this load of bull to Kyuwook,” Jiho says when they pull up in front of her building. “Maybe he’ll give you a pity bonus.”

____

“I have small kids, I’ll take pity anything,” Jaehwan mumbles, but Jiho doesn’t hear him anymore because her phone is ringing and it’s Minho. She checks the time. It’s been about two hours since they finished talking. 

____

Jiho’s heart skips a beat when she presses the green button to answer. She licks her lips before saying anything, her throat going dry for no reason.

____

“Hey!” she says, trying for casual. “Miss me already?”

____

“Can we talk?”

____

Minho’s voice sounds small. Jiho freezes in the hallway with her hand halfway in her bag because she was searching for the keys, with her phone pressed between her ear and shoulder at an awkward angle. 

____

“Yes,” she says. “We can do that.”

____

She doesn’t know what Minho is so upset about, but she knows this voice, the tone of someone on the verge of crying. Jiho wants desperately to hug her, make everything okay by sheer will, but she knows that even were they in the same room she’d be paralyzed with indecision. Her fingers twitch and she clenches her free hand until the bite of her short nails into the skin of her palms becomes too painful to ignore.

____

Something catches her attention on the phone. Minho is apologizing. “I won’t take much time, I just. I needed to call someone.”

____

Jiho can’t help but feel elated at this inadvertent confession of her own importance, at being the first one Minho thought about in a crisis, and it makes her feel like shit at the same time. Well. She can always be a better, less selfish person next year. 

____

For now, Jiho says, “Sure,” and stays on the phone. Minho doesn’t say much and so Jiho tries to fill the silence without asking what happened. It’s not until she opens the door to her studio room that she blurts out, on pure impulse, “Come to my place.”

____

She panics as soon as the words leave her mouth and casts about for something, anything at all to change the subject to, and the only thing that comes to mind is a slightly desperate, “We’ll work on music! It’ll take your mind off… whatever's going on.”

____

Jiho tries not to groan. She must really be tired, and also an idiot, to ask this, because Minho never comes over — Pink Punk’s manager doesn’t allow her or her roommates to go out without a chaperone.

____

“Okay,” says Minho.

____

She hangs up. Jiho doesn’t even have time to say anything else, left there to stare at her phone. She shifts her gaze to the large designer clock on the wall, next to the half-dead aloe plant her mother insisted she buy. It’s just after ten, the usual time Minho gets the practice room to herself. According to her, she’s still shit at dancing and needs these additional hours. Jiho secretly doesn’t agree at all.

____

She startles when she gets a message and looks down at her phone. It’s a cute blushing banana sticker and an _‘idk whr u live’_ right after. Jiho feels the corners of her lips quirking up of their own will and then, with no pause, something catches in her throat and she is momentarily overwhelmed by the intensity of it all — the silly sticker, and Minho, and this ridiculous, enormous, schoolgirl crush Jiho can’t even lie to herself about anymore.

____

It’s maybe another half an hour that she spends smoking on the smaller balcony overlooking the driveway before she finally sees Minho getting out of a taxi. All Jiho can see from this angle is Minho’s long blonde hair tied into a messy top bun, a style she wears at home and never out, just in case there are any trigger-happy fans with cameras around. 

____

Minho looks better than Jiho expected when she steps out of the elevator. Her smile is a bit crooked but genuine, and despite the unstyled hair she looks fresh. At least she didn’t cry in the car on her way over, Jiho thinks.

____

“Are you dying?” and there she goes, saying things before thinking them through. Minho laughs and hugs her when she steps in with no consideration to what this does to Jiho's mental state, her hands running down Jiho's spine and sides before releasing her.

____

“Probably. I didn’t tell the manager I’ll be out all night,” she says. “No, I’m… fine. I think. Need a drink, maybe.”

____

They have a drink. Jiho places their wine glasses on the table next to the DAW controller, right on top of some papers that might be important and doesn’t find two shits to give about it within herself at the moment. She’s more of a beer girl when she drinks but she’s had this bottle in the fridge for a couple weeks now, just in case Minho did come over. She likes to be prepared.

____

What she’s not prepared for is Minho toasting her with the glass and downing it in one go.

____

“Okay,” Minho says decisively, planting the emptied glass back on the table with a thump. “Let’s make kickass music.”

____

It feels weird, having Minho in her studio. The room isn’t exactly a private sanctuary, however picky Jiho is when it comes to her visitors, and has seen its fair amount of guests — sober, drunk, high, or, in one memorable instance that has had Kyung banned from her house for close to a year, throwing up on her unfinished lyrics. And yet, Minho’s presence feels as if she’s too close, as if her curiously looking around or leafing through lyric sheets haphazardly thrown about on the table is bringing her closer to being too intimately familiar with Jiho. Something constricts in Jiho's chest at the thought, makes the back of her throat hurt. She really, really needs to focus on the song they are writing. 

____

They mess around with a few random bars while Minho is getting a hang of the DAW controller, the software, the layout of Jiho’s working space, and then they start on Okey Dokey. Jiho was right; it only takes them a few hours until the song is as ready as it will ever be. The only thing they need to do is to actually record it. 

____

Jiho stretches out as much as she can in her chair, satisfied in a way only good sex or an extremely good writing session can make her. Minho, head laying on her arms on the table, looks at her from behind her lashes and then says, unprompted, “Tablo wants me to sign with him.”

____

“What?”

____

Minho shrugs with one shoulder, and turns her head more into her hands, so her next words come out as a mumble. “At his new label. Well, it’s technically a vanity label, YG has full control of the financial stuff, but Tablo is allowed to… recruit. I guess. For now.”

____

“What about your group?”

____

Minho groans and sits straight, rubbing her face with both her hands before turning to Jiho. “Yeah, no group. This is an either-or type of offer.”

____

Jiho gives her a long look; Minho’s disheveled hair is by now mostly out of the bun and sticking every which way, but at least at this point she sounds less devastated than she sounded on the phone and more like herself.

____

“What’s the catch?” Jiho asks finally. There’s always a catch. 

____

“Tablo’s contract for the label is a two-year deal. If I don’t make it after two years, well.” Minho shifts in the chair. “Since Pink Punk will have debuted by then, one guess whether the company gives me the boot. Or locks me down in the goddamn basement until I waste away from old age.”

____

Jiho nods in understanding. Two years is nothing for a new artist. For a group, especially the new baby of a Big Three agency, two years with the whole weight of that machine behind them is enough to establish a solid base and get themselves off the ground, maybe even start eyeing Japan or China. For a solo female rapper? Even as good as Minho? It's going to fly by.

____

“I asked the Money producers if I could invite my father to the first live recording. If I make it that far, anyway,” Minho says unprompted. She fidgets, casting her eyes everywhere but Jiho’s face, and then laughs softly at something. “He wasn’t even really around when I was growing up, and yet I’m so… tethered to his opinion.”

____

Jiho feels like she’s in the middle of a conversation that has started without her. She doesn’t know what’s the polite thing to offer. The only honest thing she can say means telling Minho about her brother, and about her mother’s calls, and the way she feels more weary every time her phone lights up with her mother’s number. The way it becomes harder to put Jiseok above herself, even just during those short conversations. She says, “I know the feeling. I used to be terrified of disappointing my mother.”

____

Minho harrumphs. “I used to be terrified of disappointing _myself_ ,” she says curtly. “That’s the whole problem, right here.”

____

There’s nothing Jiho can say to that, certainly not a joke, so she stays silent and hopes that her presence is comforting enough, even though that would be the first time. Minho is swaying slightly in the chair, back and forth like she’s trying to rock herself to sleep or calmness. Her brows are knitted together, making a line appear between them, and she nibbles on the soft tip of her finger in thought.

____

“Any advice?” Minho asks after a pause. She lifts her eyes to Jiho’s, intent and steady.

____

Jiho falters, feels the heat high on her cheeks. “I… you want my advice?”

____

She is waiting for a sarcastic one-liner back, the sort Kyung and Jay are especially fond of, but Minho only jerks a shoulder again, looking away. She keeps twisting one lock of hair around her finger.

____

“Sure,” Minho says, voice low. “I called you, didn’t I? And…” she hesitates, biting her lips, and then says fast, as if the words are tumbling out of her mouth against her will, “You’re amazing, you know that? You have all this…” 

____

Minho waves a hand around the studio, and for the life of her Jiho can’t get past the bitter, ugly note in Minho’s voice when she continues. “You have all this. Your career. Your own studio, fuck, you can write songs! I’d love to write songs. This group, this whole Mean Girls concept we’ve got, it’s just not me. We don’t even mesh that well. One of the girls barely speaks any Korean! There’s no way I’d ever be allowed in the studio unless someone needs to throw a bone to those fans who actually want authentic music. Even then, I’d probably have to write something within the concept we’ll have. Or worse, just be a name in the credits and nothing to do with the actual songwriting.”

____

It must be the bitterness Jiho didn’t expect from Minho that makes her laugh, derisively, half at herself and half at Minho. 

____

“A career.” She says flatly. “Right. You see any solo albums on the walls here? Any, oh I don’t know, of my own solo awards on the shelves? I have fuck all, Minho. I wrote a bunch of songs for a bunch of guys who all got more credit for it than I’ll ever have. Come the fuck on. You think I didn’t want to get a headstart in a group?”

____

“You were never in a group.”

____

“That’s because I punched my CEO in the dick and got fired, not because I thought I’d make it on my own.” Jiho sucks in air through her teeth and tries to stop herself from winding up. “Look. The fact is, a group is a platform. Yeah, sure, you compromise for a couple years, put on a titillating performance or a hundred so the whole Korean army buys out your albums, and then you can do whatever. Look at Hyuna. Look at CL. If I were you I’d…”

____

Minho only looks at her, a stubborn set to her jaw Jiho’s never seen before. It’s a distractingly attractive expression on her, and Jiho doesn’t even want to be attracted to Minho at this precise moment. She wants to convince her not to make a stupid, costly decision. 

____

“I was wrong,” Minho says abruptly and stands up. “I shouldn’t have come. I need to make my own decision on this.”

____

She turns away and Jiho grabs her wrist before she can stop herself. She looks at her own fingers and then releases Minho’s hand is if burned. 

____

“Sorry. Stay. I have a guest room.”

____

Minho sighs. She still isn’t looking at Jiho; Jiho, for her part, can’t seem to stop staring. Minho’s t-shirt sits crookedly on her shoulders. One of them is almost completely exposed, and the neck is wide enough to begin with so Jiho can see Minho’s collarbones. They jut forward defensively as Minho curls her body away from Jiho’s touch and gaze both. 

____

“It’s late.” Minho says when the silence gets too heavy. “I should go.”

____

Jiho wants to kiss her, and that realization comes and then stays through Minho calling a taxi and absentmindedly placing her wine glass in the sink, then putting on her sneakers. Jiho watches her from the relative safety of the studio’s doorway, hands fisted inside her pockets to keep from grabbing Minho again.

____

“You’re scared of the possibility of what you could do solo, and I don't want that to be me,” Minho says, facing the front door. She glides her fingers over the door handle and drops her hand, hesitating. “I don’t want to wake up one day, miserable and regretting everything I’ve done with my life. Or haven’t done.”

____

This time she turns the handle without hesitation. Jiho stands there, rooted in place, until she can’t hear Minho’s heels tapping on the floor anymore.

____

She still wants to kiss her. 

____

“Shit,” Jiho says in the silence of her empty apartment.

____

If there’s anything good to be found in this utter and total fiasco, it’s that Jiho has a bout of sudden inspiration. They might be right about the whole tortured genius thing. Or she might be procrastinating on processing her feelings. Songwriting is easier to deal with.

____

She spends the next several days in a creative fever that’s rare for her. Jiho takes the sample that’s been languishing in the SMTM folder since before the show started, and builds on it whenever she has free time. She deletes half of the layers but keeps the beat and the piano, and writes a simple melody for the hook a few days after that. She writes the lyrics for the hook last, on her bed, sitting cross-legged in her pajama shorts and messy hair that’s kept from falling on her face with a million pins. 

____

Minho’s last words to her are stuck in Jiho’s head. She keeps obsessing over them, so it’s not a surprise her song for Minho ends up being about herself instead. She titles it ‘Fear’ when she’s done writing and looks at the word for a long minute before sending the base beat to Minho. She'd rather send the finished guide, but it's not a short song. Minho will need to write at least four full verses and that’s between filming, practicing choreo, and the Show Me The Money stuff. There’s a diss battle coming soon, for which Jiho and Sanghyun have been informed their opponent will be team Brand New.

____

Jiho doesn’t hear anything from Minho about the song. There isn’t much to talk about so Jiho doesn’t fret. The only thing left to finish is the hook, which calls for a vocal part. Jiho tries to record it herself but her voice keeps catching. It’s probably better if someone else does this, she tells herself after several tries. She makes a mental note to check her contact list when she has free time.

____

Minho successfully avoids her at the next episode’s filming. She spends the day either rehearsing with Sanghyun or chatting with other contestants; Jiho stays out of her way as much as she can and barely participates when the cameras aren’t rolling. Sanghyun and her had agreed their first elimination would be Ja Mezz, so Jiho has nothing to do but wait impatiently through everyone’s performances until Minho shows up. She seems fine. Someone in the crowd elbows her and she swats them away, laughing. Jiho doesn’t want to be that person, but she’s only human, and she very humanly feels bitter that Minho doesn’t seem affected by their falling out in the slightest.

____

She stews in her bitterness through the first few round, until Black Nut’s elimination cheers her up. When they get back to the judges’ room Jintae collapses on the sofa.

____

“I swear they’re all as bad as each other,” he says. “Why did I come here?”

____

“For money,” deadpans Jay. “It’s in the title, even.”

____

Tablo pipes up with, “My company owns my soul.” 

____

Jiho wants to believe he’s joking. Jintae shakes his head, his afro bouncing around like a brown halo.

____

“Well, at least we got Hanhae a bit of exposure,” he says. “Gotta count for something. He’s a good kid.” Unlike Black Nut, Jiho hears him carefully not saying. Thank God for small mercies: she won’t have to see that ugly mug anymore. 

____

She forgets all about the new guy Okjeong tried to paw off at her until she scrolls through an unfamiliar name in her contact list. He might not be her first choice, but she’s fairly sure Okjeong wouldn’t recommend someone all around horrible, and unless she can find someone to feature on Fear in two weeks there won’t be enough time to run her choice past YG for approval and record. Minho will need at least the full guide in two weeks, if not the real thing; she must be in the middle of writing her diss for the upcoming shoot, but after that she’ll have to double down on her verses if they want to get things done in time. 

____

Jiho shakes her head, trying to get thoughts of Minho out, and calls Okjeong’s recommendation instead of dwelling on her crush any longer.

____

“Can I talk to Dean?” she asks when a guy picks up the phone. It’s weird to refer to someone her own age by their stage name in a private conversation. She only ever does that with her brother, but she never got Dean's full name.

____

“And who might be asking?” Dean says on the other side.

____

His tone is light, polite but wary — Jiho has an identical one for calls from unknown numbers. Works both for variety shows calling in and fans who sometimes get a hold of her number. 

____

“I got your number from Okjeong--from Penomeco,” she says as an explanation. “Name’s Zico. Woo Jiho, really.”

____

“Oh!” he perks up at this. “Oh that’s right. You were on the list Hyoseob gave me. Artists I might want to talk to about my album. He, uh, he didn’t include himself on that list, so I didn’t know if it was legit or he meant I was to never call anyone from it.”

____

Jiho smiles. “Knowing him, probably both.”

____

Dean snorts into the phone and coughs to hide it. It’s cute. 

____

He says, “Uh. So what can I help you with?”

____

He’s way more polite that Jiho’s other friends. She decides on the spot to keep him. “You know what, I have a song that needs a guide sung, like, tomorrow. You want to come up to my studio, we’ll figure that out and maybe talk about your tracks?”

____

He’s only silent for a moment before he agrees and they set up a time.

____

“By the way,” Jiho says before hanging up. “Is your name actually Dean? Okjeong said you were American, but I didn’t ask.”

____

“Oh!” he sounds surprised, and then adds sheepishly, “no, no, I’m very Korean. I’m Kwon Hyuk. Nice to meet you.”

____

He makes it to her studio with three whole minutes to spare, which elevates him above all of her asshole friends. Hyuk’s voice is a little too smooth, a little too unemotional to bring out what she intended in Fear, but he’s a fun enough guy for Jiho to write down an idea or three for his album. He’s new on the scene, barely knows anyone, but she feels he can pull off some of her more interesting beats if they both apply themselves. There’s a session, a few meetings in, — she pencils them in now, like a goddamn grown-up, because Hyuk’s used to things the American way, — a session after which Jiho resolutely moves a song she’s been working to a new folder named ‘DEAN’ from a ‘Fantasy football’ folder that contains all the imaginary collabs she’s going to get when she's a proper solo artist someday; like G-Dragon, and Kanye, and Zion.T. 

____

She’s working on something she feels might be good for Hyuk when she gets the call. It’s dusk, the soft light filtering through the half-shattered blinds and painting the bedroom pinkish. In this light, Jiho’s tattoos stand out even more; she still remembers when she’d had to cover them up with makeup whenever she went on a TV show, just a few years ago.

____

The number isn’t unknown, per se, but it just says ‘Show Me The Money’, giving no indication as to who might be on the other side. When Jiho picks up, it’s Kim, which surprises her; she’d have thought it would be one of the deer-like assistants.

____

“Just thought I should let you know,” Kim says after a short, polite greeting. “But Han Dongchul has decided to let the contestant Black Nut come back.”

____

“What,” Jiho says. 

____

“The ratings are really good,” Kim says apologetically.

____

“He was kicked out of the show.”

____

“Yes”, Kim agrees. “Unfortunately, bringing him back means someone has to go instead. It’s not one of yours, before you ask,” she adds just as Jiho is about to do just that, “but our writers’ room has decided that it’s best if his diss battle is against Song Minho.”

____

“Oh, come on! She’s worked her ass off for that round! She won't have enough time to prepare anything halfway decent if you change her goddamn opponent now.” 

____

The producer lets the language slide, but her voice gets that hard edge that means she’s speaking off the record. Jiho’s heard it enough in meetings and on the phone to recognize by now. “Let’s be honest, here,” Kim says. “She’s on the list. She's going through even if she can barely string two sentences together, and while we appreciate good craftsmanship, it’s not a necessary qualification for someone who paid to appear on the show.” 

____

It’s the first time Jiho’s heard someone from the show mention buying in so directly. 

____

Kim sighs. “Which is why I’m calling you. I thought it would be…” she hesitates for a long time, choosing the right word. “Prudent, to let you know. Some people in the writers’ room felt it would be… more interesting were Song Minho to fail against Kim Daewoong in that round.”

____

“She’s going to anyway,” Jiho points out. “The diss battle is what, in three days? Don't take this the wrong way — I appreciate the help,” she adds as an afterthought, but she really is grateful to be given advance notice for once. Jiho hates the games producers play whenever they want better ratings, at the expense of artists. They leave a bitter taste in her mouth.

____

“I only just found out,” Kim says, something between apology and reproach in her voice. Jiho rubs the back of her neck. 

____

“Sorry,” she says. “Thank you. Honestly. I’ll let Minho know.”

____

She tries to keep busy after the call. The cleaning lady is coming the next morning, and Jiho can’t possibly let her know how messy her room really is, so she picks up her clothes and puts them up in the closet, gathers the empty mugs from the bedside table and picks up any stray pieces of paper that might contain lyrics or anything else useful, to sort through later. It doesn’t help much with the nerves. The thought of calling Minho with these news is still too much.

____

She calls Tablo instead. 

____

“I have a thing,” she says, no preamble because once you’ve seen the inside of someone’s studio you’re allowed certain liberties. “Can I play you the thing? It’s for the show.”

____

“Why don’t you ask Sanghyun?” he asks, not unkindly. She can hear a child’s laugh in the background. It is a Sunday, but they so rarely get to live on normal people schedule Jiho doesn’t measure time in days of the week anymore. She still feels bad for intruding on family time.

____

Jiho offers him the truth. “I don’t have his number. I have yours. And Jay’s, but me and Jay know the same people, he’s useless as a contact. And,” she finishes with her trump card, “I’m going on your radio show in a couple days.” She shouldn’t be pressing senior artists to pay back favors she hasn’t even earned yet, but desperate times, desperate measures. Tablo had at least spent enough years outside Korea that she won't offend him by the breach of unwritten social mores. 

____

Tablo says, “It’s work, honey. You go play with Mommy, I’ll be right there,” which is probably not meant for Jiho. “Okay. Send me the thing. If it’s bad, I’m blacklisting this number until you can sell me on a good song.”

____

It’s fair enough, as far as warnings go. Jiho sends Fear to his email, the guide version Hyuk had recorded for her: the cleaned up melody, polished chorus and bridge and all, no lyrics otherwise. Those will be Minho’s responsibility; Minho, who heard it in snatches of a beat weeks ago, who still has no idea her diss battle partner was swapped for another because Jiho is a giant chicken. 

____

She cheats the first time she calls Minho by timing the call to the start of rehearsals at YG. Minho never picks up during rehearsals, and Jiho hopes that maybe seeing a missed call will make Minho call her back, but she gets embarrassed about her newly emerged manipulative tendencies faster than that happens and calls again to leave a voicemail.

____

Minho picks up. 

____

“Aren’t you in a rehearsal,” Jiho says, groaning inwardly as soon as her foot lands squarely in her big mouth.

____

“Yeah. Not supposed to talk,” Minho agrees mildly. She doesn’t hang up. Jiho isn’t sure what to make of this. Minho sounds no different from when they talked--the time before last. Jiho isn’t thinking about the last time. She says, instead:

____

“Sorry, I’m…” and there’s a lot to be sorry about, Jiho muses. She settles on, “It’s Money business. You good to talk?”

____

“I have a get out of jail free card for my secret girlfriend,” Minho says wryly. There’s a shuffle of clothes, something being moved, and then a sigh. “I know this won't be good, so don’t beat around the bush, okay? Just tell me.”

____

“They’ve changed your diss battle partner.” Jiho cringes in anticipation, but Minho only sucks in a quick breath. Absently, Jiho wonders if this is girl group media training talking. She's never received any herself apart from being schooled by the underground rap scene, but that was more of a boot camp. Military-grade survival techniques for those not required to go to the actual military. A how-to guide on being a resourceful motherfucker.

____

“To whom?” Minho asks.

____

“Black Nut.”

____

“But he was… off the show, wasn’t he?”

____

“That’s what I said,” Jiho says, grimacing. “Apparently, it’s good for the…”

____

“Ratings?” Minho sounds derisive. “Isn’t it just.”

____

“I’m sorry. I know the battle’s in two days. Don’t worry about writing a good punch, I’m sure everyone who knows the circumstances won’t hold it against you.”

____

“Not your fault,” this time, Minho almost sounds gentle, but that must be wishful thinking on Jiho’s part.

____

Jiho says, “I… do you want to come over?” 

____

Minho is silent for a long time, while Jiho distractedly worries a hangnail until it tears off and a sudden spark of pain pulls her out of her anxiety. She presses her lips to the tiny scrape, tastes the tell-tale metallic bite of blood. Her nail tech will not be happy about this.

____

“Better not,” Minho says finally. “I still have a few hours of practice. But tell you what, I’ll check with the manager and text you, I have a few thoughts about Okey Dokey I wanted to go over. If you don’t mind.” It’s not exactly a question. 

____

“I’d be happy to.” Jiho will also be happy to take the awkward, forced politeness if that gets her time with Minho in a studio. All else aside, she still wants to produce good music. Minho might not be the designated winner of this season of the show, but Jiho will do right by her. She’ll make damn sure Minho gets noticed for her talent, even if she ultimately decides not to use that clout for her future career.

____

She only realizes she hasn’t seen Kyung in weeks when he invites himself over the morning of Tablo’s radio show recording and takes over her studio. The only silver lining in this intervention is that he brings breakfast pizza and news.

____

“So Hanhae tells me he’s out,” Kyung says conversationally. His feet are on the table — again — and Jiho slaps him on the thigh until he moves them. Again. Then she registers his words and drops her head on the table, narrowly missing a pizza slice laying on a piece of paper that may or may not be lyrics to one of Block B's latest songs. 

____

“I’m a terrible friend. I didn’t even think to ask who’s getting kicked out instead of Black Nut.”

____

“Don’t worry, Hanhae doesn’t think of you as a friend anyway.” Kyung reaches for the pizza over her head. “You’re more of a… tinnitus. Can’t stop you ringing, can’t get rid of you.”

____

“Thanks, Park.” Jiho turns her head to look at him. He looks unrepentant and his smirk is about 20 degrees south of being friendly. 

____

“Any time. It’s not that bad, he said he got a few solid contacts out of it.”

____

Jiho closes her eyes. “That’s something, at least.”

____

“I’ve also watched the first couple episodes that aired.” There’s a false levity in Kyung’s voice, barely noticeable but for the fact Jiho has known him for years, considers him more of a brother than the one she’s got, knows him inside and out. 

____

His eyes are narrowed imperceptibly when she looks at him. 

____

“Anything you want to tell me?” He asks before offering her another slice of pizza.

____

She takes it. “Nothing to tell.”

____

“Mm-hm.”

____

“Would I lie to you?”

____

“Yes,” he says, the bastard. “Well, okay. Far it be from me to stop you from getting laid.”

____

Jiho chokes on her pizza. A spike of anxiety goes through her, like a hot rod shoved between her ribs, making her wrap her arms around her stomach to try and hold it in check. Somewhere under the fear she has sense to be scandalized and if that's not funny, she doesn't know what is. How many people look as closely as Kyung? She guesses most of her fans.

____

“Shit,” Kyung says, and then his sauce-stained fingers are on her face. “Breathe, Jesus. Do we need to have the talk again? Repeat after me: you being horny on camera is not visible to anyone who isn’t Park Kyu…” 

____

Jiho shoves him away. 

____

“Better?” He is a little shit sometimes, but she can see he’s genuinely worried. She nods. “Good. Is the ‘nothing to tell’ subject to a ‘sadly’?”

____

“I don’t know,” Jiho's chair suddenly sprouts angles and springs it didn't have before and she can't get comfortable no matter how she twists. Kyung rarely pushes when she doesn’t want to talk, but this time she’s so confused she doesn’t even know if she wants to tell him something. Jiho is still reeling from that spike of fear, so she hedges. “I… Are we sure we’re on the same page, here?”

____

“Tall, blonde, great ass?” Kyung raises his eyebrows. “Honestly. It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

____

“A girl can only dream,” mutters Jiho. She unfolds from her chair, nibbles on the rapidly cooling pizza. It’s close to two in the afternoon; Tablo’s radio is an evening affair, but nevertheless she needs to get her ass to the studio soon. Radio means less eyes on her, so she doesn’t have to care as much about her appearance, but there still will be fans, and fan photos, and maybe a video or two for promotion, which means she has to at least do her makeup and bother to find one of her less comfortable, but more flattering hoodies. 

____

Kyung busies himself by looking over the things she’s jotted down for the upcoming comeback and doesn’t mention anything about Minho again. It seems he really just wanted to check on Jiho, because he offers no suggestions or critiques on Block B’s future material, just clicks through the half-cooked songs and nods to himself. 

____

He raises his eyebrows once again when Jiho takes the mouse from him and clicks on a folder titled ‘Solo??’ to play him something she thinks might make a good Bastarz track. She’s not supposed to get involved in that, Jihoon wants to try his hand at producing and writing, but the song doesn’t sound right for her anyway. Might as well shop it to Block B before trying to sell to someone else.

____

“I don’t see why you don't want it,” Kyung says after listening to it. “Just strip it even more. Add a piano or something. And how about going up a key on the chorus, too? I know you like to work with guys, but I think if you get another girl to feature here, it might make for a nice ballad. You don’t have a lot of those.”

____

“Because I’m not composing an album,” Jiho points out reasonably. He’s got a point — an album would have to have more variety than the few singles she’s put out, which was her line of thought back when she first started working on this track. But an album is a crazy idea to entertain until she has more exposure, more clout, more arguments in her favor to lay out in front of Kyuwook and turn into money.

____

“You should be.”

____

Jiho snorts and waves him away, out of her studio and out of her hair for the day. “Maybe next year. I still have you five to make famous in Japan and feed me with royalties. Have you seen my fridge? It's woeful, you lot aren't pulling your weight.”

____

“Then write us better songs. Also, I’m sure we’ll survive one promo cycle without you gracing us with your genius,” Kyung returns dryly. “You’re going with us to LA next month, right?”

____

“I think so. Why?”

____

Kyung gives her a long look. “Might want to ask for your own time slot. I heard Crush is going?”

____

“Hyoseob, really?” Jiho frowns. “He never tells me stuff like that.”

____

She worries her lower lip between her teeth, lost in thought. They could do Oasis if she can browbeat Hyoseob into it, and it’s true her time on K-CON was supposed to be split between two of her Block B features, but it’s not so close to the date she couldn’t ask for a setlist change if she wanted. She turns around to ask Kyung if he thinks she should do it, but he’s gone already, and according to the clock on her white wall she should be getting ready to leave, too.

____

Tablo is playing something on his phone and doesn’t acknowledge Jiho before the broadcast other than to nod in response to her greeting. She amuses herself by checking her emails and waving to the fans huddled outside. Most of them are girls; Jiho blows a kiss to them and they erupt in screams so loud she can hear the faint echo even through the thick glass. 

____

Jiho hums and smiles, pleased with herself. She reviews the script laying on the table before her for any changes but it’s bare bones as it is: a few themes for the evening outlined on page one, punchlines she’s supposed to say before they play certain songs on page two. Tablo gets into working mode as soon as the producer sits him down in front of the microphone, and tells Jiho he was chatting with his daughter, who’s supposed to be asleep this late, but always stays up through the introduction whenever the show is on. 

____

He invites Jiho over to his studio after they finish recording. 

____

“Gave your song a listen,” Tablo says conversationally. The YG building is dimly lit at this hour but livelier than Jiho would have thought, buzzing with people who don't notice or acknowledge them past a rare nod. Dancers and staff members dart about in similar uniforms of dark tees and darker pants, differing only in the tightness of said pants. Jiho turns around to admire a random dancer's very pert ass clad in leggings and Tablo adds, “Yongbae is practicing tonight. I thought we’d go bother him.”

____

This stops Jiho in her tracks. Yeah, sure, let’s go bother Taeyang, what could go wrong. Not like the guy has a reputation as one of the most cold-blooded motherfuckers in the industry. She takes a breath deep enough to puff her cheeks and releases it slowly. 

____

“You want Taeyang to listen to the song I composed for a reality TV-show?” she clarifies. Maybe this is a nightmare she can wake up from if she just wishes hard enough. No such luck: Tablo nods.

____

“It’s a good song. Has Minho started on the lyrics yet?”

____

Jiho shifts her weight from one leg to the other, trying to think of something to say which will be positive and yet not technically a lie until Tablo starts walking again and she has to run after him or risk him presenting Fear to Taeyang without her careful supervision.

____

“Why would you even do that?” she mutters to herself. 

____

Tablo either has supernatural hearing or Jiho needs to reconsider her definition of talking quetly, because he replies. “Let’s just say I’m interested in that girl doing well on the show.”

____

And that does sound fair. If Tablo wants Minho to sign with him and make her someone who can stand on her own in just under two years they needed to start on building her profile yesterday. Taeyang would be a giant draw as a featuring artist, both for the general public and the massive, sprawling Bigbang fanbase. Jiho feels calmer at the thought that there was an actual business decision behind Tablo’s move and not a desire to have her die of embarrassment. 

____

“Did Yang Hyunsuk approve of Taeyang’s feature already?” she asks. Tablo shakes his head.

____

“When it comes to Bigbang you want to get them on board first, and they'll pitch it to Yang later. Trust me: this will save us a lot of time. But Yongbae won’t sign off on a collab unless he’s interested, and he’s a hermit who never checks his email unless it’s Bigbang-related, ergo, we go bother him until he agrees.” With this, he turns a door handle, and Jiho realizes they’ve come to a large dance studio. The dancers along the mirrored walls who are watching the routine in the middle don’t even turn their heads to look at them. There are several chairs on the far end of the room, empty but for jackets and backpacks haphazardly thrown onto them, and Tablo leads Jiho to them and gestures for her to sit. 

____

Once song switches to another, with no one paying them any attention until it’s finished, and then the dancers turn from precise machines to people who laugh and clap Taeyang on the shoulder as they bundle up, say their goodbyes and leave.

____

Jiho had met Taeyang before on award shows. He was always polite but distant, and she knows from gossip he gets coldly disappointed and on a speedy track to angry whenever he thinks someone isn’t good enough at their job. For all her confidence in the song Jiho can't help being wary about his reaction to it. The guide she’d sent to Tablo is as polished as it can be, but she’d rather not be roasted by one of the biggest artists in her industry, even though Taeyang isn’t a producer or a rapper himself. 

____

He gives Tablo a short nod and a smile. He’s shorter than Jiho, so she leans into the wall and slouches to hide it.

____

“Jiho here and I have a song for you,” Tablo says. 

____

Taeyang raises his eyebrows and his smile deepens, making him look like a squishy dumpling. “More Epik High stuff? You should’ve just sent it to Kyungrae. That’s my manager,” he adds for Jiho’s benefit. 

____

“No,” Tablo shakes his head and nods at Jiho. “This is for Show Me The Money. Jiho is the producer, Minho is rapping, and you’re on the chorus.”

____

“Minho who?” Taeyang asks, accepting an earbud from Tablo.

____

“One of Jiyong’s girls.” Tablo says absently and misses the spectacular eyeroll Taeyang gives him at this.

____

“Right.” Taeyang says with such a perfect mix of incredulity and sarcasm in his voice Jiho feels offended on Minho’s behalf. And what does G-Dragon have to do with Pink Punk? She makes a mental note to ask Minho.

____

“You won’t have to carry her, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Tablo hands Taeyang the other earbud and presses play on his phone. "She's the real deal, believe it or not."

____

Jiho is trying not to fidget but it’s a losing battle; she’s shuffling heer feet and twirling a stray lock of hair between her fingers before the first chorus finishes playing by her calculations. Not long after Taeyang takes the earphones out and chews the inside of his cheek for a moment, brows drawn together. 

____

“So,” he starts and cuts a look to Jiho. “What’s your stake in this, Seonwoong?”

____

“Want to steal the girl from Jiyong for that label I’m gonna get,” Tablo says, unbothered. Taeyang's answering snort is derisive. What does he have against Minho anyway? Jiho tries to make herself smaller to eavesdrop some more, but Taeyang turns his attention to her instead. 

____

“You’re Zico, right? I’m terrible with names, sorry,” he flashes her another smile. “I’d need to hear this a few more times, but it seems solid enough. Is this you on the verses?” He hums when Jiho nods. She rapped some gibberish just to set up the melody, as usual. “Nice. Sure you don't want to release it yourself? Anyway. Whoever’s on the chorus right now? He needs to go. The guy sounds dead, brings the whole vibe down. And you’ve autotuned him to the point I'd mistake him for Siri if you didn't tell me it isn't. Autotune aside this doesn’t sound like EDM, so in my opinion either the piano goes or the autotune should.”

____

Wow, tell me how you really feel, Jiho thinks. Hyuk is going to die if he ever finds out his performance got this reaction from Taeyang. Still, she was the one to invite him and he's still her number 2 choice if this doesn't work out, so feels compelled to defend him. 

____

“It was my idea. I wanted to go with a… depressed feeling, because the theme is fear.”

____

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a desperate vibe in the chorus though? Just going off the lyrics. Dope job on the beat there, though, I could see myself performing this.” He says, slapping Tablo’s shoulder a few times. “Seonwoong, bro, I would _maybe_ be up for this, but you know I can’t do anything without Big Bird’s approval.”

____

“I’ll talk to the old man,” Tablo says. “Knew I could count on you.”

____

“Don’t think I won’t collect,” Taeyang says, but Jiho thinks it’s a joke. Probably. Most likely. Deadpan seems to be YGE's corporate brand of humor so it's hard to tell.

____

She doesn’t really know if that meeting means Taeyang will feature on her song since he seems to dislike Minho, although Tablo cheerfully informs her that once he gets ideas about a song’s direction, it’s just a matter of time before he agrees.

____

“He’s a perfectionist,” Tablo explains next time they see each other on the next Show Me The Money recording. “If he hears something he knows is good but thinks he can improve it, he’ll put in the work. And I sent him some of Minho’s work. He’s a bit biased against Pink Punk because he thinks they're using Jiyong's name too much, but I’m sure he’ll get past that once he hears what she can do. He likes talent.”

____

There isn’t any audience for the diss battle and there aren’t many contestants left, so the set looks empty to Jiho as she climbs to her platform and the small lumpy IKEA couch she's become attached to. Sanghyun raises a hand in greeting and Jay winks at her, miming a yawn. Jiho hides a smile at that, steals a glance at her phone wondering if it's okay to text Minho since they haven't starting recording yet. Are they at the stage where Jiho can text her again? Minho never followed up their last phone call, and Jiho has been stuck in a limbo of uncertainty, doubting herself every time she reached for the phone. 

____

Jintae and San are the last judges to come in together with Han Dongchul, the other main producer besides Kim. 

____

Sanghyun bows his head closer to Jiho’s and murmurs, “they had to film a whole song and dance about making a mistake last round with Hanhae and Black Nut. I think they can’t eliminate the guy again until at least the next episode, too. What a joke.”

____

Shit. Jiho gives in and sends Minho a short message telling her to crush the motherfucker. Minho should be recording the pre-round interview right now so Jiho doesn’t wait for an answer, and instead checks up on Hanhae, texting with him in between most of the other performances. He’s the type to bring his phone even to the toilet, so he replies to her worried question mark quickly and then waves her and her worries off with, _‘I got a gd offer out of this, dnw abt me.’_

____

Jiho only raises her head when the announcer says Minho’s name to see her step on the platform and tip her nonexistent hat at the judges. Seeing Black Nut climb the few short steps after her sours Jiho’s mood. She trains her eyes on the farthest camera to stop herself staring at Minho and misses whatever makes Sanghyun groan next to her and rub his face with both hands.

____

“What?” she asks him, and then hears it, Black Nut spitting out bars calling Minho a walking cunt whose one real job will be to fuck him when he makes it big and... Jiho turns to look at the rest of the judges. Jay’s eyebrows are trying to climb off his head. She meets Tablo’s eyes, sees his lips curl. Minho is trying to start rapping again because it’s her turn, but Jiho stands up. 

____

“Stop filming.”

____

There’s a murmur from below. Jiho doesn’t look at the contestants, or the judges. “Stop filming, please,” she repeats. “I believe we judges have an urgent matter to discuss.”

____

The cameras keep rolling for a long moment, until Tablo also stands up from his couch. “Seconded.” He sounds like they are in court, petitioning the judge. Kim, fittingly wearing a maroon dress, sighs and waves a hand. 

____

“Take fifteen, guys. Please,” this she addresses to Jiho, “let’s discuss this in the conference room.”

____

This one is smaller and less grand than the one they tend to use for meetings, with barely enough space to fit all of them. Kim cuts Jiho off as soon as she opens her mouth. 

____

“I know. He was extremely unprofessional. But this is a rap show.”

____

Jiho slams her palms onto the table. “He wasn’t just being unprofessional! He was treating her like a blow-up doll!” She swallows and deliberately, slowly takes her hands off the dark wood. Makes sure she’s not shouting. “I’m not sure we should be allowing this kind of performance when the show’s been gaining… undue attention as it is.” This is a low blow, but one she’s more than happy to make under the circumstances. Show Me the Money has been under the public scrutiny for a few weeks now, ever since the scandal with one of the contestants using misogynistic lyrics in his verse. Jiho barely saw anything wrong with the line, but the KCSC decided they wanted blood. 

____

She’s satisfied to see Kim flinch at that and even more glad to see Jintae step in.

____

“Considering I just had to say, on camera, that I think choosing Hanhae last round over Black Nut was a mistake, I’d really appreciate not having to compromise my integrity any further for this show’s sake. Because let me tell you,” he continues, cutting Kim off with a sharp stab of a finger, “I won’t do it.”

____

Kim lets out a loud sigh. “I understand! I am, after all, a woman.” She shoots Jiho a look. “It was very uncomfortable to watch. But we can’t re-record it! He won’t have anything else to perform if we did. As far as I understand your contestants all only brought one verse to the round, not to mention these two have been paired up a few days ago.”

____

“I don’t know, sounded like he’s been planning that for a while,” muses Jay from a far corner of the room where he’s sitting on the windowsill. 

____

“I think he’s just… like that about everyone,” San says, apologetically. 

____

Hyukwoo snickers. “He probably has a bar or two ready to go about your toes, Jay.”

____

“You fucker, I won’t be able to unsee it now!” Jay yelps and Jiho laughs despite herself. 

____

They spent the next couple hours in the room, discussing the unwritten guidelines and SOPs to bring back to their teams so this won’t happen again. At the three hour mark they decide to move the pairs around so that Jintae has time to go over Black Nut’s verse and try to make it into a cohesive whole after taking out the most offensive lines. It’s still a diss battle, still a rap show — they have some leeway in how many Yo Mama references they can make, but, Jiho thinks gratefully, at least out loud, if only in this room, everyone agrees this won’t fly.

____

Jiho doesn’t care about their fragile status quo after they finish filming for the day, cares even less for stray looks people might be giving her as she power-walks down the corridor to the contestants’ room. They finished earlier than the judges, so there are only a few people left.

____

“Is Song Minho here?” she asks, trying to hide her nerves. The contestant — she isn’t sure what his name is, only that he’s one of Jay’s, — shakes his head.

____

“She left a few minutes ago.” He says. “She usually takes the stairs to the parking lot, so if you hurry…”

____

Jiho hurries. She catches up to Minho on the third floor and stops in front of her, breathing hard and probably red from exertion, too-blonde hair flying everywhere from her short bun.

____

“Fancy meeting you here,” Jiho wheezes. “Fuck, I think I’m dying. A little friendly CPR, here?”

____

Minho grins and offers her a water bottle, cap already off. “Did you run all the way here or what?”

____

“Walked really, really fast.” Jiho says. The water tastes like ambrosia. “I was wondering if you wanted to hang out.”

____

Minho looks her up and down, making Jiho flush, and says, “coulda called.”

____

“I could,” agrees Jiho. 

____

Minho cocks an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, okay. I did say I had some ideas about that song of ours, didn’t I.”

____

Jiho releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding when they arrive at her apartment. Minho’s in the middle of an inane story involving her cat and her roommate’s teacup-sized dog that Jiho is only half-listening to; the other half of her attention is on the way Minho’s eyes seem to move to her mouth whenever she laughs, the way Minho is bumping her with an elbow from time to time. Jiho is usually pretty forward when it comes to sex — if this were anyone else, any other of her former girlfriends or one night stands, or FWB arrangements, she would’ve already made a move, slipped an arm around Minho’s waist, kissed the soft pout she’s making when she thinks Jiho isn’t paying attention. 

____

Jiho doesn’t do any of this. She’s afraid this is all just wishful thinking on her part. Maybe she’s seeing what she really, really wants to see and all she’d get if she tried to kiss Minho is cold silence. Jiho is not ready for the cold silence. So she doesn’t kiss her. Instead she says:

____

“By the way, what does G-Dragon have to do with your group?”

____

“She’s, uh, our producer. Kind of,” Minho says, taking her hoodie off, seemingly as comfortable in Jiho’s apartment as before. She has a white tee underneath, probably the same one she was wearing last time, with the same wide neck. Jiho approves of this t-shirt immensely.

____

Then the words catch up to her. “What? You never told me that!”

____

Minho’s eyebrows go up. “You don’t like talking about G-Dragon,” she points out. 

____

“Well I do when it’s about you,” Jiho says.

____

“It doesn’t even makes sense,” Minho tells her. “If I tell you, will you stop looking at me like that? It’s disturbing. I swear I’m not running off into the sunset with her and betraying your trust in my good taste.” 

____

“I’m not looking at you at all,” announces Jiho and demonstrates this by going to make herself some coffee. The demon coffee machine decides to stop cooperating for today, despite making a perfectly fine Americano in the morning, so Jiho busies herself with trying to figure out the problem while Minho talks.

____

“She’s supposed to write us a song and promote us a while, but really, what matters is that her name’s attached to us at all. We’re coasting on the coattails of Fame. Capital F.”

____

“Yeah, for Farce,” Jiho says.

____

“I know, right?” Minho sighs. “I’m not saying other agencies are different, but… I mean, the salary is nice. It’s all good, except when they want me to like, pretend to date a random whatsisname from one of the boy groups we have. I don’t even like guys!”

____

Jiho presses the button accidentally and sprays herself with piping hot milk.

____

“At least, fifty percent of me doesn’t,” Minho adds after a long pause. Jiho turns around only to find her fixated on the vinyls neatly stacked on the shelf on the opposite side of the room. 

____

Jiho presses the right button this time. The coffee machine whirrs into action.

____

“Hear, hear.” She says conversationally. “About ninety nine percent of me doesn’t want any guys touching me, I can commiserate. Never liked the fake dating trope anyway.”

____

Minho looks up at her then, a slow smile starting to play across her lips. “You’re breaking my heart. I love The Proposal.”

____

“The naked Sandra Bullock scene was almost enough to save that movie, if it makes you feel better.” Jiho hands her a coffee mug. “So, are you going to do it?”

____

“I… Don’t know that I have much choice,” Minho says carefully. “It won’t be a real dating scandal. They don’t want a scandal, really. More like, a will-they-won’t-they vibe, I guess? Some fans eat that shit up.”

____

The only thing left to do with Okey Dokey is perform it, so they do exactly that, clear out a space in Jiho’s soundproof studio to move around and prop Jiho’s phone up on the DAW to record. They add a couple finishing touches to it, but for the most part they’re ready as they can be. Minho moves like they’ve been performing together forever, their easy synergy and Minho’s goofy antics making Jiho’s head swim, until she collapses, laughing, on Minho’s shoulder. When she lifts her head up, Minho’s mouth is right there. 

____

“Uh,” Jiho says. “Sounds great.”

____

“It does.”

____

Jiho stutters again. Minho isn’t moving away, but she’s not moving forward, either. Shit. What’s a girl to do, here?

____

Apparently, say, like an idiot: “So want to show me what you and Sanghyun have been working on?”

____

At that, Minho steps away and fiddles with her own phone until she finds the song and plays it for Jiho. It’s a good song, more polished than Okey Dokey, more mature, and Minho’s lyrics make her whistle a couple times. She thinks: if this works out; if Turtle Ship and Okey Dokey and Fear work out; then Minho could really make it as a solo act.

____

Unexpectedly, the thought makes her jealous.

____

It’s not that she has never once thought about branching out more, breaking off from Block B, trying it as a full-time rapper instead of a producer who features sometimes for a group she writes for and has a couple singles under her belt. She just never felt ready for a career. Never felt worthy. Which is, Jiho muses as she spends evening after evening holed up in the studio writing song after song, each one marginally better that the one before, total bullshit. She’s not going to pretend she doesn’t need validation from other people — other artists, because even if she, Woo Jiho, can take it or leave it, she, Zico, needs acknowledgment to get work. But if Show Me The Money gave her anything besides a useless, terrifying crush on Song Minho, it’s enough acknowledgment to last a while.

____

So she sits in the studio, obsessively crafting the next beat, and thinks that maybe she’d like to be the one on the cover of an album. She might never become the second G-Dragon, but she can be a great Zico if she gives herself half a chance. 

____

“I’ll drink to that,” says Hyuk next week, raising his fruity cocktail. The only other friend who could come on the short notice is Okjeong, currently sworn off alcohol because they all felt guilty making their managers wait for their drunk asses in the middle of the night and needed a designated driver. 

____

Okjeong toasts her with a Virgin Mojito. “Took you long enough. Maybe Hyoseob will let you near Haesol as a present for finally growing balls.”

____

“I should call my album, like, The Queen,” Jiho says. 

____

“Sit on that throne from Game of Thrones for the cover,” agrees Okjeong. “Kick ass.”

____

“Drink some fancy wine.” Hyuk nods at him.

____

“Yeah, call it the Fancy Queen!” 

____

Three beers and one unfortunate Old Fashioned later Jiho says: “Guys, by the way, guess who I might be getting for Fear? That song I had you sing a guide for,” she explains to Hyuk. Okjeong hasn’t heard it but he waves a hand for her to continue. “Taeyang.”

____

Okjeong whistles and toasts her with his glass.

____

“He turned out to be a really nice guy,” Jiho waves to the bartender and indicates she needs another beer brought to the table with a complex gesture routine. “But if he falls through, care to be the official featuring guy on the song, Hyuk?”

____

He agrees easily enough. They have another song in the wings, barely a concept at this point, but Jiho keeps adding to it in between working on the tracks for the album she hasn’t even discussed with Kyuwook yet. That’s a conversation she isn’t looking forward too; thanks to the royalties she gets from all the Block B work she can self-finance a mixtape, maybe an EP, but she’d be out of luck if she wanted to appear on even a shitty music show. 

____

August starts with a hot spell, the sun bearing down on Jiho whenever she dares to venture outside. Minho calls and text her, but it’s usually cat updates or silly photos, nothing work-related as they both enjoy a short break as the pre-recorded episodes of Show Me The Money air. The final few episodes are live recordings, where the remainder of their team will be working their asses off to give memorable performances and impress the label execs and scouts. They’ll have to record studio versions of all songs, but that time had been sorted out and penciled into everyone’s schedule at the moment they put signatures on their contracts. 

____

Minho’s refusal to discuss work is why the first Jiho hears about Pink Punk’s debut is on the TV. She’s at a beauty salon, her hairstylist trying to turn her over-bleached hair into a more natural shade of brown, and the news anchors are discussing G-Dragon’s new pet project. They play short clips from a press-conference G-Dragon had given, none of the girls actually present to keep the hype going. Five silhouettes are outlined on the promotional print behind her, Minho easily identifiable by her height alone. Jiho watches until the stylist leads her to the sink and the TV is hidden from view. 

____

She hasn’t seen Minho in person for a couple weeks, what with her desperate, sudden need to work on her album and subsequent departure from the world of the living in favor of her home studio until either Kyung or Jaehwan tear her away to eat or be a functional adult with a job. The dreaded talk with Kyuwook goes better than she expected; she won’t be able to promote on Block B’s level, but she signs a separate contract extension for the album, all 6 to 8 songs of it. Seven Seasons can’t give her much production money, so she’s expected to make do with what they have in-house, which suits Jiho just fine. Her fingers itch with the desire to get right into the details, shooting the cover and choosing the font for the booklet. Production, overseeing the mixing and engineering, those are the easy parts, and still she breaks out in anxiety hives at the thought of anything going wrong. Kyuwook might have given her total creative control because he couldn’t spare money to hire people to do it for her, but Jiho appreciates it more than she let on in the meeting. 

____

She realizes how much she’s missed Minho only when she bumps into her while shopping for a new microphone, and it takes Jiho a solid ten seconds to realize it’s a full-sized photo on the side of the music store that sells records. Minho is slouching in that nonchalant way she does when she’s comfortable, her eyes sparkling with barely-hidden humor and the corners of her lips upturned ever so slightly, as though she’s teasing Jiho about the crush that’s been spreading inside her unbridled and which she’s given up on stopping. Jiho sighs.

____

Minho, a goddamn supernatural gremlin that she is, chooses this exact moment to call.

____

“Got the lyrics to Fear done,” she announces. “Whatcha doin’?”

____

Jiho is still horrible at flirting with her, barely even able to hold her boatload of feelings under wraps when she’s not looking for a reaction, so she doesn’t say, ‘you, hopefully’, like she would’ve to any of her past crushes to move things along. She says, “I didn’t know you were modeling,” which has an added benefit of making her sound like a stalker.

____

Minho must not notice Jiho being pathetic, because she just snorts. “Yeah, that’s for the company’s brand. I’m not sure I’ll be seeing any money from this contract if accounting has its way. What do you say I come over? Haven’t seen you in, like, a decade, started thinking maybe you were a fever dream.”

____

Making peace with her stalker tendencies Jiho waits for Minho’s arrival on the balcony of her apartment. The nondescript black car that pulls up to the parking lot half an hour later screams ‘I’m famous’. Minho looks the part, too. She has a black snapback on, blonde hair tied back into a ponytail, and she’s wearing a hoodie even in this horrible stone-melting hot weather. Minho is taking off the facial mask when Jiho opens the front door, and the sight makes Jiho shake with laughter. 

____

Minho gives her a sour look. “Let’s just assume you’re not laughing at me and go from there.”

____

“Aw, come on,” Jiho waves her into the apartment, still snickering. “You can’t blame me, you’re like the walking ‘how to be a new idol’ memo. The only thing missing is a pair of sunglasses.”

____

Minho crosses her hands on her chest and says in a high, annoyed tone. “Since the agency gave a press-conference about our debut we are strongly advised not to go anywhere without a disguise. Appropriate attire at all times would be much appreciated.”

____

It does sound like something Pink Punk’s high-strung, uptight manager would demand. 

____

“She said that?”

____

“She said that.” Minho smirks back at her and bumps her shoulder into Jiho’s. “Glad to see you’re alive.”

____

“Ah!” Jiho claps her hands and grins at her until her cheeks start to hurt. “That’s right, I never told you! I’ve been working on an album.”

____

The answering smile on Minho’s face crinkles her eyes. “Anything to show yet?”

____

“Mostly bits and pieces. I’ll show you when there’s something to show,” Jiho says. She hesitates before sitting in the sofa next to Minho. Their knees bump but neither of them moves. “So I take it the press-con means you’ve decided not to take Tablo’s offer?”

____

Minho lets out a sharp breath and rubs the back of her neck, silent for a long moment. “I told my dad I liked girls yesterday.”

____

She doesn’t say whether her confession went well. Jiho freezes in her spot on the couch, the only warm spot in her whole body is the coin-sized space where she can feel Minho’s knee with hers. “Okay,” she says.

____

“I thought, if I can do that, I can do anything.” Minho lifts her head to look at Jiho. Her eyes are serious, considering, without a trace of her usual humor. “Turned out to be easier than company evaluations. On the last one, two of us were told we’re too fat. Me included. Obviously. ” She scoffs at the thought. Privately, Jiho agrees the disdain is entirely justified, Minho’s thighs and ass are a work of art. Jiho is a stick herself, most of the food she’d eaten as a teenager must have went into her height, but she’d heard enough of Hyuna’s complaints about the diets she’s been made to do over the years to sympathize.

____

“The point is, I thought it would be the biggest thing in my life, you know? Telling him. And it wasn’t. The biggest thing is still me. This business.” She’s silent until it feels like the silence is a sound in its own right, grating on Jiho’s ears, but which she doesn’t dare interrupt until Minho finds her words again. “I’ve thought about what you said. The group is a grind, but then after I get enough experience under my belt I can ask for a solo. Maybe I’ll get it. A slow and steady ‘maybe’ is loads better than Tablo’s… uncertainty.” Minho’s lips twist in a self-deprecating smile. “And I’m not good enough to blindly believe I’d make it big on my own. President Yang isn’t my biggest fan.”

____

Jiho feels like she’s standing on a cliff, terrified of falling and yet curious to see what’s going to happen if she lets herself jump. Her breath catches in her throat when she starts speaking, making her flush, and she has to cough and try again. There’s a speech prepared. 

____

She can’t remember a word of it.

____

“Well. You’ve won me over, if it counts for something,” Jiho says. Her heart pounds in her chest like a tolling bell, and she can almost hear the sound when she leans forward and kisses Minho. 

____

Minho gasps into the kiss. Her breath is warm on Jiho’s face, the possibility of more sweet and frightening at the same time, but then Minho kisses her back and Jiho’s eyes flutter shut of their own accord with relief and desire. Jiho didn’t know what she was imagining — didn’t even know she was imagining anything, — but it takes her aback for a moment when Minho deepens the kiss almost instantly and twists her body until she’s crowding Jiho against the armrest. Her lips are chapped; they catch on Jiho’s lips for a second, making her shudder with pleasure. The kiss is gentle, but Minho’s hands are not. She drags her short, blunt nails along Jiho’s shoulders and neck, slides her fingertips into the hair on the nape of Jiho’s neck.

____

Jiho is floating, high, along for the ride in her own body, perfectly pliable in Minho’s hands, until Minho’s lips leave hers and graze her jaw. “You really do have a great mouth,” Minho murmurs, and Jiho can’t help herself: she bursts laughing, a high-pitched, piercing sound, more a reaction to a sudden spike of embarrassment than humor. 

____

“Oh my god,” she says.

____

“I’ll take it, but for the record,” Minho tells her with a musing tone of someone contemplating their mistakes, “that wasn’t the reaction I was going for.”

____

Jiho finds her hand and laces their fingers together, squeezing hard. They’re so close Jiho can feel the heat of Minho’s skin, making her feel drunk and reckless. She lifts their clasped hands to her lips to kiss the soft skin just behind Minho’s knuckles.

____

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just… Do you know how I got out of my previous company?”

____

Minho’s eyebrows climb up so high they might actually fly away. 

____

“You mean, you really punched your CEO in the dick?”

____

“In my defense,” Jiho says with as much dignity as she can muster, “I had no idea they could break. Do not.” She stabs a finger at Minho just as she opens her mouth. “No one in Block B is letting me live this down and I will not have another person added to that list.”

____

Minho mimics a zipping gesture, although her eyebrows stay up high and her lips twitch, the corners going up imperceptibly.

____

Jiho rolls her eyes at the display. “He was getting handsy, what was I supposed to do? I acted on instinct.”

____

“Nice,” Minho says, nodding. “But what does it have to do with…?”

____

“The phrase ‘cock-sucking mouth’ may or may not have been uttered just before the punching. I’m not a fan,” Jiho says. Cringes; she was so young then, so shocked, so angry, and even years later she still doesn’t know if she had made the right decision by not apologizing, not being perfectly meek like one of her groupmates-to-be. Had she done that, she would probably be performing regularly by now, with another three, or five, or seven girls alongside her. 

____

On the other hand, the cover of her album is going to be her sitting on giant gold-leafed throne. Maybe she did okay. All things considered.

____

The day of the studio recording for Fear, the one to be shipped to MNET for distribution, creeps up on Jiho while she isn’t looking. The dress rehearsal is scheduled in two days and the live performance the day after that. Jiho has no idea whether Minho is going to be the runner-up or not, but she’ll be there through at least this performance and it’s going to be spectacular if Jiho has any say in it. She’s still on cloud nine, buoyed by the express permission to touch Minho whenever she’s so inclined, so she floats up the stairs to the sixth floor where Taeyang had texted her he’d be, ready to sign on the dotted line. 

____

She is not expecting G-Dragon to be there. 

____

Jiho used to have a massive crush on her back in school, which turned into professional admiration when she got into the industry, which then became annoyance as soon as people began comparing them at every turn. G-Dragon is tiny and perfect, kissed by the whole heavenly host before birth and God himself shoved a silver spoon so far up her ass she shits money, but Jiho doesn’t want to be second to anyone, whether they know of their ongoing rivalry or not.

____

Jiho is feeling magnanimous, though, so she politely bows in greeting and doesn’t even think petty thoughts about the cost of such a perfect jawline. G-Dragon looks less immaculate than she does on magazine covers and music shows, her eyeliner smudged around the edges and feet folded under herself on the couch, but she’s still striking. She bows back without getting up, and remembers enough about Jiho to call her by name and ask after Block B. Well, at least she’s polite.

____

No petty thoughts, Jiho reminds herself.

____

“You’re going to record it now?” G-Dragon tilts her head to the side and looks past Jiho to Taeyang. Her voice always trips Jiho up, deeper than it should be coming out of such a small frame. “Do you want me to stay?”

____

Taeyang gives her shoulder a few light pushes and ushers her to the door when she finally stands up. “No. We’d be here through the whole weekend and I have a girlfriend to see. It’s not even your song, so chill, you maniac.”

____

G-Dragon laughs and glides past Jiho without sparing her another glance. “I’d get the best sound out of you,” she points out, but doesn’t protest when Taeyang shuts the door in her face. 

____

They have time before they need to be in the studio. Minho is still rehearsing her group’s debut routines or being fitted for the debut showcase, which is supposed to be in a month and yet nothing is ready, including the costumes. While they wait, they go over the details of the song one last time with the guy doing the mixing. She appreciates Taeyang being the same type of perfectionist as her in the studio — the first recording sounds too low for her, and the second attempt sounds too flat for him, so it’s a couple hours until they both agree on the general direction and feeling the chorus should be going.

____

When the door opens Jiho expects Minho to come in, but it’s Yang Hyunsuk. She stands up to bow, dipping her head to hide the displeasure undoubtedly showing on her face.

____

“You’re always so polite, Jiho,” he says with an approving nod. “If only our younger trainees were more like you. I just came by to see how the song is shaping up. Jiyong told me you were staying up late in here.” He lifts his hand to his mouth to cover a chuckle. “It was quite a surprise when Youngbae said he wanted to do a song for Show Me The Money.”

____

Taeyang raises one shoulder in a careless shrug. “Gotta stay hip and relevant.” He stretches and motions to the door. “I’m going to eat while we’re waiting for Minho.”

____

Yang comes closer to the mixing board and peers at the monitors, rubs his chin in thought and then gestures for the mixing guy to play it. He hums through the beat and nods through Taeyang’s parts. 

____

“How long do you have left on your contract?” he asks without looking at Jiho, and a few seconds go by before Jiho realizes he’s talking to her.

____

It’s not secret information per se, but Jiho just looks at him, one eyebrow cocked. “Why?”

____

If Yang is bothered by the lack of proper deference he doesn’t let it show. “I would love if you signed with YGE instead,” he says mildly. “We would even be willing to pay the severance fee.”

____

“I’m working on my album,” she says. It’s not an answer; Jiho is fishing. 

____

“We have wonderful facilities just for that. As I’m sure you are aware by now,” Yang adds. 

____

Jiho narrows her eyes, licks her lips before starting to speak. “I have a few years left.” She chooses every word carefully, as though walking through a minefield. Yang’s proposal is deceptive in its simplicity and nonchalance, but it writes a different story between the lines. No one would offer to pay a hefty severance fee on a contract they don’t even know the length of. For all Yang knows she re-signed it last week and has a five-year worth of fines to pay if she wanted out.

____

Surely he can’t have been that impressed after half a song he just heard. The thought that she might have leverage now, that her own name might really be enough to sell, fills Jiho with a myriad of emotions, only part of which she can identify. There’s wariness, and triumph, and astonishment, but relief coats all of it, makes her careless enough to say, “I’ll have to pass on that, thank you. But you can contact me once Block B start going to the army. I’ve worked on them hard, I’m not leaving them now.”

____

Yang inclines his head and hides his mouth behind his palm again.

____

“I will keep that in mind.”

____

Something makes Jiho open her mouth again. “I’ll be happy to work with your artists independently, if it’s someone worth my while.” The words come out of her almost of their own accord. Distantly, she tries to imagine herself saying these things to a CEO of a Big Three company two years ago. 

____

Yang doesn’t say anything and Jiho gets tenser by the second until he hums. 

____

“I’m very much looking forward to you signing with us.” He claps his hands, signaling the end of the conversation. “Send us the songs. We will discuss the terms separately.”

____

Jiho bows again, because she isn’t an ingrate and she knows very well you can only push the boundaries so much.

____

Minho bumps into Yang at the door, making a complicated eyebrow dance that might mean a question.

____

“He wanted to check out the song,” Jiho explains. 

____

The mixing guy stands up for what might be the first time today, judging by the horrible popping sound his knees make. 

____

“Smoke break!” He beelines out the door, leaving Jiho and Minho alone. 

____

Jiho is paranoid about everywhere that isn’t her house, so she keeps her hands to herself in case there are cameras. Minho’s eyes soften when she looks at Jiho, but other than a brief hug she doesn’t touch her at all. 

____

“Ready to spit some bars?” Jiho asks, the safest thing she can think of.

____

The mixing guy still hasn’t returned, but Jiho is familiar enough with the board to manage for a while. In the booth, Minho fiddles with her earphones and then gives her a thumbs up. They stop halfway through the first session because Minho has all the emotion of a corpse in her voice, and Jiho won’t let her compromise herself. She flips the tumbler to open the booth channel and says into the microphone, “aren’t you too pretty to be here, babe?”

____

Minho flips her the bird and adds the second hand to the gesture to be on the safe side, but at least it gets her out of her funk. Jiho cackles into the mic and waits for the thumbs up. 

____

The second attempt goes better, but Jiho needs the mixing guy to focus on her own job. Minho has no idea how to reach him.

____

“We should text Taeyang,” she says. “He’ll have that slacker here in like, a minute.” She puts her feet up on the low coffee table and folds her arms behind her head. The pose makes her breasts just forward, which in turn makes Jiho want to wrap up the recording as fast as possible to free up time for more urgent matters. Minho gives her a languid, knowing smile, because as it turns out, she’s a little teasing shit.

____

“Hey,” Jiho says, throws it out there because she knows the answer, but wants to hear it anyway. “Want to be my girlfriend?”

____

Taeyang chooses this moment to come in with the mixing guy on his heels. 

____

“Oh, hey Minho. You’ve started without us?”

____

“Yes,” Minho says. She’s looking at Jiho.

____

The days before the live recording blur together into one long stretch of work. If Jiho isn’t in her own studio she’s in one of MNET’s meeting rooms; she’s working on the throne prop for the album cover with the set manager or overseeing the recording of studio versions of all the Show Me The Money songs her team’s worked on. Her and Sanghyun only have Minho in the running by now, and Kim tells them she’s going to be the runner-up, but not the winner. That title goes to one of Jintae and San’s guys, and for what Jiho dislikes losing, she can’t consider the past few months anything other than a win overall.

____

The live recording of Fear goes so smoothly it seems weird to have been nervous about it. After the filming is over, Minho texts her manager some bullshit excuse guaranteed to get her in trouble and climbs into Jiho’s car, nodding to Jaehwan. 

____

In the darkness of the car, Jiho’s hand lands on Minho’s knee and she amuses herself the rest of the ride home by sliding it incrementally further up, until Minho’s leg starts trembling under her fingertips. 

____

It’s a weird disconnect between stepping out of the car and getting to the apartment; they meet one of Jiho’s more nosy neighbors in the elevator and stand a feet apart from each other. As soon as the door into the apartment closes behind them with a soft click Minho pounces on Jiho, grabs a fistful of her ass.

____

“I bet she’s listening,” Jiho says, turning her head to the side to giggle.

____

“By all means. Hope she has half as good a time as I’m going to have.” Minho bites at the slope of Jiho’s shoulder, just hard enough to make her draw a sharp breath.

____

Her enthusiasm is gratifying, but they both don’t have enough energy for anything other than a heavy make-out session only marred by the fact any hickeys or bite marks are not allowed on the yet non-debuted. Technically, Minho shouldn’t even be here, she needs to get up bright and early tomorrow for Pink Punk’s photoshoot.

____

“Oh, Yang’s changed the name. It’s Blackpink now,” Minho says absently. She’s frowning into her phone. “They’ve decided on the showcase date, apparently. Now they just have to hype us up for the public, reveal us one by one, you know the drill. Hence the shoot. No idea why it can’t be an afternoon shoot.” She rolls her eyes.

____

Jiho is laying almost on top of her on the living room couch. She runs her hand down Minho’s side and squeezes her thigh before sitting up, tipping her head back and trying to work up the enthusiasm to go into the studio and let Minho rest. Minho promptly plops her feet in Jiho’s lap. She shoves at them without putting much heart in the gesture. 

____

“With the numbers your songs are generating I doubt you personally need any more revealing. I’ll make some coffee and go work in the studio. You should sleep here, I’ll get Jaehwan to drive you to the YG building in the morning.”

____

Jiho makes her forbidden bitter ambrosia of the gods in silence while Minho scrolls through her phone, for all intents and purposes looking at home in Jiho’s apartment in her thin cotton tee. 

____

In the comfortable silence they’re sharing the sound of the phone call seems to reverberate around the room. Jiho pauses on her way to the studio to shamelessly eavesdrop. Judging by the deference in Minho’s voice, tempered with a note of barely-noticeable sarcasm, that would be Blackpink’s manager calling. The woman has a unique talent of getting Minho into the foulest of moods within 15 seconds, and Jiho would probably insult her on principle if they ever met, so she makes a rational decision to not worsen her opinion about her and doesn’t stop to listen.

____

She leaves the door open just in case Minho wants to come in and chat before bed and switches to headphones just in case Minho actually goes to bed. She’s trying to feel for the headphone jack on the speakers with her fingers since the DAW for some reasons tends to reset the output channel back to front speakers anyway whenever she loads a new instrument, which is why she rarely bothers with headphones, when Minho raises her voice enough Jiho can hear her all the way from the studio.

____

“I said, it’s for _work_ ,” Minho bites out. “We’re _writing_. What do you mean, what? Songs!” Now that Jiho is listening, she can hear Minho pacing around the kitchen and back to the balcony. She sounds like she’s a breath away from grinding her teeth. “I know we won’t be able to sing our own stuff for now, but… What?” She stops talking, the sounds of her pacing fading away too. Jiho places the headphones back on the shelf without looking if she disturbed any of her lyric sheets and steps out to lean in the doorway of the studio. 

____

Minho is gaping at her already dark phone screen. She lets a breath out through her nose, an angry sound made angrier by the total silence in the room. 

____

“Got some news, if you can believe it,” she says, not taking her eyes away from her phone. In contrast to her visible agitation, her voice sounds calm. Jiho has a sneaking suspicion it’s a deceptive impression. “I was, in fact, put on this very Earth to be pretty when I’m told and sexy when I’m told, and shut the fuck up at any other time.” Minho runs a forceful hand through her already messy hair. “Now I get why you hate talking about G-Dragon.” 

____

“I have no idea why you would think that,” Jiho says, looking at the ceiling. She really should get back to work.

____

“Apparently one of us is supposed to become the second G-Dragon. Or if we’re not good enough for that we could at least make an effort and have enough decency to be the second 2ne1.”

____

“Ah.”

____

“You know what? I don’t think I like being second,” Minho muses. Jiho inclines her head from the doorway, too hesitant to move otherwise and ruin whatever mood Minho is in when she sounds like this; like she’s jumping off a plane into the unknown. When she looks back, she finds Minho with her lips pursed, looking into her phone as if she’s staring down a lion. She jabs at it a few times, calling someone, and then says into it, looking straight at Jiho, “Seonwoong? This is Song Minho. Yes, I saw the numbers, thank you. Look...” Her fingers tighten on the phone, gaze still focused on Jiho, terrified and elated at the same time. “Is that offer to sign with your new label still open?”

____

Tablo says something that sounds garbled from where Jiho is standing so she watches Minho’s face for any reaction to hint at the reply.

____

Her smile is like the sun.

____


End file.
